MOORPARK : Wrangle on School Land Sale Continues

The city of Moorpark and the Moorpark Unified School District are still at odds over the sale of district athletic fields that the city envisions as a downtown park.

After more than six years of negotiations and legal wrangling, the district last week declined a city offer to buy the 10-acre parcel for $1.2 million.

Board members Tom Baldwin and Clint Harper supported the proposal--which they negotiated with Mayor Paul Lawrason and Councilman Bernardo Perez--but board President Pam Castro voted against the deal because it called for the city to pay only $900,000 up front with the rest in annual payments of $50,000 for six years.

Board member Greg Barker said the price was far too low for him to support the deal.

The board agreed in closed session early Friday to send a counteroffer to the city in which all terms of the deal would remain the same, but the city would pay $900,000 up front and make up the rest at $100,000 per year for the next three years, Harper said.

That offer was rejected in a City Council closed session Monday, Councilman Scott Montgomery said, because the city cannot afford to pay the remaining $300,000 over three years.

Montgomery said Perez was instructed at the meeting to bring an offer back to the school board under which the city would make up the final $300,000 in four annual payments of $75,000.

Baldwin said Tuesday that he and Harper would accept that offer, but “it isn’t Clint and I who are standing between it. We were happy with $50,000 a year for six years, so we’d be happy to take $75,000 over four years. It’s Pam they’re going to have to convince. Greg’s a million miles away.�

Castro said late Tuesday she had not heard about the city’s latest offer and would have to consider it before deciding how to vote.