Marin education office seeks longer review of Fairfax child center deal

Marin County education officials say they need more time to review the feasibility of purchasing the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center property from the Ross Valley School District.

Members of the Marin County Board of Education came to that conclusion after reviewing a preliminary report on the property.

The report found no significant environmental, construction or safety issues at the site so far, but board members said they still have a lot of questions, said Ken Lippi, a deputy superintendent at the Marin County Office of Education.

“The board did ask that an action item be placed on the Aug. 8 meeting asking the Ross Valley School District to consider extending the timeline they have with the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center so that in-depth review and discussion can continue related to this very significant decision,” Lippi said.

A year ago, the school district, which owns the property in Deer Park in Fairfax, set an Aug. 31 deadline for the district to sell the property to another public entity or to the center’s operators, the district’s tenants.

If a sale is not completed by Aug. 31, the district could evict the business. District officials have said that they would allow leeway on the deadline if a sale were already in the works.

“I would be really surprised if Ross Valley School District said no, that they wouldn’t extend the deadline,” Heidi Tomsky, the center’s director, said Monday. “They have always said they would extend it as long as things were moving forward — and things are moving forward.”

Tomsky, who sat in on the county board meeting on July 11, said board members want to have a chance to digest the final report in depth and ask questions if necessary, without being under pressure to take a vote on Aug. 8.

John Carroll, the county superintendent of schools, has told the school district, the center and the public that the Marin County Office of Education is interested in purchasing the property to develop a countywide early education center.

Carroll has also promised that if the sale to the county goes through, he would immediately grant the center’s operators a long-term lease.

Carroll has continued to attend regular meetings with district officials and center staff, Tomsky said. All indications are that the school district would be open to an extension, she said.

“I’m anticipating that it will be a no-brainer,” she said of the district’s vote to extend the deadline. “There’s no guarantee, but I’m not concerned because of how fast things have been progressing.”

So far, Lippi said, “no red flags or deal-breaking items have been discovered to date” by the inspectors at the property. He said he expected the soil, water, title, boundary search and other studies to wrap up in the next few weeks, in time for a final report to the board on Aug. 8.

“The study is continuing over the next weeks and the development of additional site information and cost projections is still underway,” Lippi said.

Even if the county’s final report gives the sale a green light, Lippi said he expects the county board to schedule additional meetings to go over financial and operational details.

For example, if the sale goes forward, the county would need to decide whether to do completely new construction or to just modernize the buildings. The preliminary report goes into depth on the pros and cons of each option, but does not make any recommendations on a preferred method.

The future of the child care center came into question last year when a lawyer for the district told board members that the property and buildings were unsafe for children and that they could be held liable if something bad happened.

When word of the lawyer’s recommendation went public, scores of families and center staffers staged protests at the board meetings.

The district trustees did not follow the lawyer’s advice. Instead they set up a yearlong process to declare the center as surplus property and then offer it for sale to the center operators or another public entity.

Carroll, who took office as superintendent at the beginning of the year, announced the county’s interest the property in the spring.