Keep land to live off in hard times

Back in October we encouraged Huntington Beach City School District officials to hold town hall meetings to discuss what they might want to do with their surplus properties. To their credit, they did just that and an appraiser told school leaders the four closed school sites are worth about $60 million.

It was the wise thing to do given all of the suspicion in the community. Many believe district officials just want to use the money to build new fancy digs for themselves or to spend money on a new bus barn. It would displace Huntington Christian School and Brethren Christian Junior/Senior High School, another apparently unpopular move in the community. Some are angry enough to say they will promote a recall of school board members if they decide to sell the land.

Unfortunately for school officials they can’t use the millions on new books, classroom supplies, teacher raises or virtually anything related to instruction. They can only spend the money on capital projects.

Considering the implosion of the global financial markets, there’s a genuine fear that school officials will need that money in the classrooms. As state lawmakers grapple with a multi-billion dollar deficit, the temptation will be to shortchange schools to help cover the costs. It would be sad that school officials were sitting on a potential $60 million and no way to get it to cover their losses. Even more unfortunate is the declining value of the property. The widening sub-prime market meltdown continues to lesson the land’s value.

That doesn’t mean the land has no value. At least the private schools pay rent and it offers a steady income.

So, again, we ask, would it be worth it to sell that property now? At a time when so many folks are fighting to save their homes from foreclosure they’re not exactly thinking about trading up. It would be inappropriate for school leaders to do the same thing by spending the money on a new headquarters. Now is the time to live within your means, just like so many of the rest of us.

You should get by with what you have and don’t cash in that surplus land unless you have no choice.