September 23, 2004

School District plans to bulldoze land for proposed
sports complex in coming weeks

Final vote on sports complex will be cast on Dec. 7

By Lorraine Gabbert
Staff Writer

After growing and harvesting barley on the Caglia Ranch property for a decade, last month the Vargas family received an eviction notice from the San Jose Unified School District (SJUSD) terminating their licensing agreement and stating the district’s intention to bulldoze the site in preparation for the proposed Almaden Youth Association sports complex.

“The city of San Jose and San Jose Unified School District have been meeting with regards to the proposed sports complex scheduled to be constructed on 35.04 acres of the Caglia property,” states School District Facilities and Property Consultant Sonja Shurr in the notice. “The commencement of this project seems to be in the near future.

It would be unconscionable on my part to allow you to plant the fields. It is estimated that during the time that barley is in its growing phase, construction will commence...” After dry-farming the land for 10 years with their father, Tony Vargas and his brother, Richard Vargas, Jr., were given 30 days to remove their equipment, supplies, hay bales, and personal property from the site.

However, the construction of the Almaden Youth Association sports complex and surrounding soccer fields awaits community approval on the amendment to the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) due back to the city of San Jose’s Department of Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement on Sept. 27, followed by a vote and recommendation by the Planning Commission on Nov. 17, and a vote by the City Council on Dec. 7.

“The school district will support the community’s and the city’s decision as to whether the sports fields should go in,” comments School District Spokeswoman Karen Fuqua. “It would be a benefit for our students, but we’re seeing what comes as a result of those meetings.”

“If everything was to go according to the current proposal, and everything passed, the project could probably start three to four months afterwards,” states Vice Mayor Pat Dando. “The hope of the Almaden Youth Association is that construction could begin almost immediately with fields being planted in the spring.”

The Almaden Valley Youth Soccer League (AVYSL) is also anxiously awaiting the new soccer fields. “We heavily rely on school fields since there’s only one public park—T.J. Martin—and that’s very restricted use due to neighbors,” says AVYSL President Terry Thompson. “We’re at the mercy of the school fields which are in horrible condition. It’s a raging war with gophers, and there are so many organizations that need space on those same fields that it’s a field feud out there at times. Coaches are getting into fights because there’s not enough space. If we could move some of those teams, it would make a huge difference. We hope to have a great complex out there.”

The Caglia Ranch property, located on McKean Road, was purchased by the San Jose Unified School District for $1.8 million in 1974 as part of the South Almaden Urban Reserve. “At that time, there was so much development going on, and developer fees coming in, that the school district was flush with money,” comments SJUSD School Board President Gary Rummelhoff. The district was expanding and growing, and Almaden schools such as Graystone, Castillero, and Leland were opening. “They probably bought the land as an investment in preparation of new schools.”

As municipal city boundaries end just south of Harry Road with Challenger school on the west and the fire station on the east, the city would lease from the SJUSD a portion of the Caglia property, which is part of the South Almaden Urban Reserve. Of the reserve’s 1,000 acres, the SJUSD owns only 77 acres, notes Rummelhoff. “Ninety-two percent is owned by others—mostly developers who anticipate building homes there in the future. We’ve allowed the city to come in and use this property if they can reach an agreement with the residents to fulfill their obligation in advance of being able to buy land,” he says. “Personally, I’m very supportive of the sports complex project, but I want to make sure that in the process the school district doesn’t lose the value of the property that we own. We’ve already outlined that agreement with the city a couple of years ago when we did the ‘Memorandum of Understanding.’ We have a good understanding with the city–how we might continue to move forward with schools as the whole South Almaden Urban Reserve is planned and developed. It’s not that we will necessarily use that particular piece for schools, but it becomes a bargaining chip in negotiating with developers in the city to make sure we have adequate space for schools. As residents move into the area they’re going to need to be served by schools.”

According to Dando, the city and the county both have general plans and agree that there should be no substantial structural development within the South Almaden Urban Reserve until a specific plan can be developed. “The trigger is that you have to have thousands of jobs in Coyote Valley before even the planning can start in Almaden, which is probably decades away,” she says.

Although the city plans to lease 35 acres from the SJUSD, they will initially begin with five. “It was thought because of the findings of the amendment to the EIR, that it would be appropriate to move ahead with five acres for the first phase,” states Dando, “because conservatively, the amendment says that you can accommodate five acres on a sports facility with grass. We will develop the first five acres with grass and water and monitor what happens with the water in the area. If there is a problem, we will do no more that requires water, but there may be more leeway to provide more grass fields. The remaining acreage could also be done with artificial turf, which is so much less expensive when it comes to maintenance.”

Bulldozing the field will cost $10,000 capital dollars, which will come out of the SJUSD building fund budget. The funds could not be allocated for students, the classroom, or teachers’ salaries. “It’s building dollars that can not be used for anything else,” attests Fuqua. “You have different categories of funding, which are restricted on state and federal levels. You can’t have cross-funding by law.”

According to Shurr, bulldozing will take place in a month or two, regardless of whether the sports complex is to be built, as several deteriorated structures pose insurance liabilities for the school district. “One of the Caglia homes has been repeatedly vandalized,” she says. “I keep going out there and boarding it up. The barn is very old, and there are two or three lean-tos that the orchard workers used to live in years and years ago that are dilapidated.

There’s an old drying shed, too. Those things need to come down.” Shurr points out that the license agreement between the school district and Vargas, signed June 6, 2003, stated then that the district intended to demolish the barn.

Among the old buildings on the site is an original house, dwarfed by the redwood tree towering above it, that was built before the Caglias came to Almaden. The home was owned by the Long Family, who moved west from Oklahoma in the 1920s and originally owned the land. “My great-grandfather Kenneth, my grandfather Herbert, and great-aunt Pearl Maria lived here,” notes Greg Long. “My father, who was born in 1937, grew up here, and so did I.” In the 1950s, the Caglias bought the land and planted a pear orchard, and the Longs relocated nearby—but the little white house, now covered in vines is still dear to Greg.

The Vargas family was permitted to dry-farm (which only requires rain water) on the back 42 acres and the front 35 acres of the ranch to keep weeds from growing, Shurr explains, thereby saving the district money by preventing a fire liability. “Otherwise, we would have had to go out there ourselves to plow,” she adds. According to Shurr, Vargas asked her if he could continue to dry-farm a portion of the land in the future. “We certainly hope that Tony will be interested in dry-farming whatever [land] is left,” she says, “but I’m not sure he still is.”

It is the end of an era for the Vargas and Long families, but perhaps the beginning of another for the youth of Almaden Valley, if the sports complex and soccer fields are created. We’ll have to wait until Dec. 7 to see if this project will go forward.