Plans to upgrade high schools move forward

Danette Goulet

COSTA MESA -- Supporters of the city’s two high schools are moving ahead

with plans to update their athletic facilities after a citizens’

committee deemed the projects unnecessary.

In its recommendations to the school board last week, the facilities

committee included repairs to Davidson Field at Newport Harbor High

School while leaving off athletic improvements to Costa Mesa and Estancia

high schools.

For years, officials at Costa Mesa High School have wanted to install a

50-meter pool, similar to the ones at Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor

high schools, and to improve its pitiful practice fields.

At Estancia, school supporters want to repair fields and have been

looking to upgrade the football field into a 2,500-seat stadium.

As a means to accomplish these tasks, the foundations of the two high

schools joined forces, creating a third foundation, which they call the

Costa Mesa Community Athletic Foundation.

All the district’s high schools now use Davidson Field.

“We all use one football stadium and that’s OK, but the ripple effect it

causes is football games on Thursday night, and that’s a school night,”

said Jim Scott, president of the new foundation.

Although the community foundation had previously gained its nonprofit

status, its members had been waiting to hear if the facility report would

include their project before pushing on, said David Brooks, foundation

member and vice president of the school board.

The committee’s rationale, said school board member Jim Ferryman, was

that Davidson Field already exists where the other two schools are

looking to build new facilities.

With the report out and the project not included, the foundation plans to

forge full steam ahead with its plans.

“The citizen committee has excluded it, so we’re still exploring it,”

Brooks said. “The work needs to be done just the same.”

Scott said the entire endeavor with additions and upgrades to both

schools will cost about $6 or $7 million.

The school board has pledged $500,000 to the undertaking, Scott said --

$365,000 of which the foundation has already received to pay for

engineering drawing and renderings.

The foundation is treading very carefully to avoid any opposition and to

smooth the way for when fund-raising begins.

“Because of its proximity to Fairview Park we’re looking into if we need

an environmental impact report on this,” Brooks said.

Although it won’t be part of the districtwide improvements, the

foundation is working with the district on planning the new facilities.

“Our focus is to really make these two projects happen,” Scott said.

“It’s for the young people.”