The kids just want their own stadium. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently, it is. There are a number of hurdles that need to be
jumped before permanent lights, seats, restroom and concession
facilities can be installed at Ann Sobrato High School’s football
field.
The kids just want their own stadium. Is that too much to ask?
Apparently, it is. There are a number of hurdles that need to be jumped before permanent lights, seats, restroom and concession facilities can be installed at Ann Sobrato High School’s football field.
But the red tape doesn’t discourage Sobrato senior Vicky Perry and her peers, who have collected more than 900 signatures from students and community members who support the would-be project.
“We’re really bothered that we have to have our home games at Live Oak,” Perry said. Next, Perry’s group will approach Sobrato’s neighbors to get their stamp of approval. Neither a petition nor neighbors’ permission are required to get the field under construction, but Perry said the moves would gain favor for the cause and help it to gain momentum.
The required course of action is more complicated than collecting signatures and making good with neighbors, officials said.
First, there’s the politics. Sobrato’s campus is situated on the border of San Jose and Morgan Hill. Only the campus itself and the back parking lot are within Morgan Hill’s city limits. The football field, on the north side of the campus, is in San Jose. And not only that, it’s in San Jose’s greenbelt.
A 2001 settlement agreement that resulted from litigation between San Jose and Morgan Hill Unified School District disallows permanent facilities or outdoor field lights on the school’s San Jose land.
As San Jose city planner Laurel Prevetti put it, the Coyote greenbelt is intended for very low intensity uses.
Prevetti said building a stadium was “something we fully expected” given the activity a high school generates.
Students hoped that new San Jose District 2 Councilman Ash Kalra would be sympathetic to their desire to have a home field.
But Kalra is against nearby Coyote Valley home development in general, let alone a football stadium.
“We certainly don’t want to infringe on the greenbelt. I’m standing firm and have stood firm on development in that area. We can’t just simply allow for permanent structures and lighting without being thoughtful with how we proceed forward,” Kalra said.
Kalra admitted that Sobrato students are in a “very unique set of circumstances.
“I’d certainly be open to discussing it. I don’t want to close any doors to the interest the community may have to try to find a way to make it happen. But under the current zoning, it just won’t work.”
Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said he’d had conversations with San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and Kalra, but they haven’t encouraged him that they would do anything to allow a stadium at Sobrato.
“I think the kids could get a better reaction,” Tate said. “It means a lot to the students. That’s their high school experience.”
Even if Kalra and the rest of the 10-member San Jose City Council were on board with the field, the move might need voter approval to redraw the greenbelt, Morgan Hill Board of Education member Shelle Thomas speculated.
Prevetti said a ballot measure was a possibility given state law that allows for voter-driven referendums and initiatives.
Though it’s not a requisite, there are Sobrato’s neighbors to consider.
“We made a commitment to that community that we would not build a full-blown stadium … in their backyard,” Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini said, adding that it was “World War III just trying to get the school built and open.
“It’s not Live Oak, where the school was established and then the homes were built around it.”
Finally, there’s the money problem. Unlike the high school solar project the district is considering, a stadium wouldn’t bring in new revenue so it would instead require services to be cut elsewhere or a new revenue source identified, Tognazzini said. She didn’t have an estimated cost of a stadium, but said the lights alone are $30,000 each. And the cash-strapped district is already staring in the face of an “ugly” financial year in 2010/11, she said.
In the shortest distance from A to B, the school district would formally request that the city of Morgan Hill request to detach the field from the city limits of San Jose. Then, Morgan Hill could annex the area, City Manager Ed Tewes said.
Detachment and annexation would require the involvement of the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, another bureaucratic agency that oversees such shifts.
Such requests aren’t uncommon, Tewes said, but he conceded that most don’t involve settlement agreements.
Prevetti said it’s possible, too, that Morgan Hill and San Jose could swap land, so that San Jose’s total area remains the same while Morgan Hill secures the land it wants.
Tognazzini said getting Sobrato a proper football field was something former superintendent Alan Nishino worked hard toward, and it’s up to new superintendent Dr. Wesley Smith to decide if it’s something he’d like to work toward.
“Alan really wanted that. If Wes really wants it, we can continue to have a discussion between agencies … to work something out. But that’s a lot of interaction between public agencies,” Tognazzini said.
Smith said he will meet with Sobrato students working on the stadium campaign shortly after the winter break.
Perry said she knows the stadium won’t be built during her tenure at Sobrato.
“We just want to get it changed for the underclassmen,” she said.
