Late Meeting May Avert Suit Against Disney : Resort: Officials with the Anaheim City School District will convene Sunday in a last-minute attempt to avoid legal action to block project.

By MATT LAIT

July 24, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ANAHEIM — Anaheim City School District officials will meet Sunday in a last-minute attempt to avert a suit against the city and the Walt Disney Co. over concerns that the proposed Disneyland Resort would overcrowd schools and drain the district’s resources.

Although district attorneys have been instructed to file a lawsuit on Monday, recent negotiations with the city and Disney have given school officials the impression that a settlement might be near, school officials said Friday.

“There’s been some very productive discussions in the last 24 hours,” Supt. Meliton Lopez acknowledged. “We’ll have to see what the board decides to do Sunday.”

The school board will meet in closed session Sunday at 10 a.m., he said.

Anaheim City School District is the only local district that is still threatening to challenge the project’s environmental review in court. Three other districts--Garden Grove Unified School District, Centralia School District and Anaheim Union High School District--dropped their plans to file lawsuits after lengthy negotiations and intense lobbying efforts involving Disney, the city and state officials.

Lopez said his district is leaving its legal options open because of concern that students’ education would suffer as a result of overcrowding anticipated from the massive $3-billion project.

He said Disney and the city need to offset the project’s adverse impacts by “providing at least one new school. . . . That’s the bottom line.”

Building a new school costs an estimated $15 million. Disney contends that state law requires the company to pay only $2.2 million in development fees to mitigate the impacts on the city’s two school districts. Of that amount, about $1.1 million would go to Anaheim City School District; the remainder to Anaheim Union School District.

Lopez would not elaborate on the recent negotiations over the district’s concerns. Officials from the city and Disney also declined to comment on the discussions.

The deadline to file a lawsuit against the environmental review of the project is technically today, but because it falls on a weekend, suits will be accepted on the next open court day, attorneys said.

If the district does file a lawsuit, Lopez said school officials will continue to try and resolve their differences with Disney and the city. If a resolution is reached, the district will withdraw its suit, he said.

“We need to keep our oars in the water and still engage in meaningful negotiations,” he said.

As proposed by Disney, the complex would include a new theme park adjacent to Disneyland, several hotels, a 5,000-seat amphitheater, a shopping district and two of the nation’s largest parking garages. Last month, the city approved environmental and planning documents for the project. They are negotiating the development agreement, which details who pays for what.

Since the draft environmental impact report was released in November, local school districts have voiced concerns over the project and seemed to be the most formidable opposition to Disney’s plans.

The districts complained that the resort would create about 28,000 new jobs, causing thousands of families to relocate to the area and enroll their children in local schools. The increased enrollment would substantially drain school resources, they contend.

Disney and the city have been unwilling to offer any direct financial support beyond the $2.2 million to address the districts’ concerns.

Several months ago, when it appeared the districts were going to sue, the governor’s office tried to mediate between the two sides.

“It was pretty intense,” said Paul Burkart, who took part in the discussions on behalf of Centralia. “I think (Disney officials) put their size and political power to bear on the school districts.”

Garden Grove Unified, Centralia, and Anaheim Union school districts have now agreed to work with Disney and the city on a compromise that apparently involves the entertainment giant providing educational and job training programs, but no direct financial support.

But the promise of such programs is not enough for Anaheim City School District, which is the largest elementary school district in the county with 21 schools and 16,262 students.

Its schools are already 2,000 students over capacity, forcing the district to use portable classrooms and turn to year-round schedules to accommodate the increasing enrollment and lack of funding.

According to district attorneys, the Disney venture would create an $80-million burden on the district.

Attorney John E. Brown, who represents the district, said that the plight of the schools and the projected impacts from the massive resort have completely been ignored by Disney, the city and the state.

He said Gov. Pete Wilson’s recent pledge of $60 million for freeway ramps and a parking garage that will benefit the Disney project is especially frustrating for district officials who are repeatedly asking for adequate state funding.

“It’s a sad day for the state of California when the governor takes great pride in giving $60 million in state taxpayer money to a private project when (our) public schools are among the most crowded in the country,” Brown said. “I think our priorities are really misplaced. . . . It’s shortsighted public policy.”