South Vallejo residents seek answers about clean-up and future of school destroyed by fire

VALLEJO – South Vallejo community members met with Vallejo school district and city officials on Tuesday for updates about the clean-up, health risks and future of the former Grant school property after a fire destroyed the building last month.

The school’s main building as well as adjacent structures burned in the early morning of May 23 leaving only a charred shell behind. Fire department officials said that the blaze was likely the result of a cooking or warming fire.

Reginald Madison, a South Vallejo resident and one of the co-organizers of the meeting said that he had spoken with several other residents about the site after the fire. 

“They were all concerned about how the city and Vallejo City Unified School District seems to have neglected the property, and basically neglected us,” Madison said. “Our South Vallejo community deserves a clean, healthy place to raise our family. We all pay our taxes, we deserve better.”  

Approximately 30 residents gathered Tuesday night at the Emmanuel Temple Apostolic Church in South Vallejo to express their concerns and hear about the Vallejo school district’s plan to clean-up the property. 

George Tisby, the school district’s director of site safety and custodial services said that on May 13, he worked with the city and police to remove about five people from the site. Workers then boarded up access points and put up additional fencing. “Unfortunately somebody did come in and burn down the site,” he said.

The building is known to contain asbestos. Limited information about exposure to toxins released as a result of the fire has fueled community concerns.

The Grant school had been closed since 1989, according to the school district. Many residents have fond memories of attending school at the tree-lined campus and passing through the classic archways of the building’s main entrance. But, decades of vacancy have led South Vallejo residents to wonder why it wasn’t put to better use. 

In 2023, the school district offered to transfer ownership of the property to the city for free because the cost of repairing the building exceeded its market value of $300,000. 

At the time, an environmental study was underway to determine if soil contamination or other issues would require costly clean-up and remediation. 

The Vallejo City Council approved a contract to acquire the property from the school district on the condition that the council would first review the report detailing the clean-up and remediation costs.

Assistant City Manager Gillian Haen said in an email that the city decided not to take on ownership of the Grant school property during confidential negotiations. The city did not respond to a request by Vallejo Sun for a copy of the environmental study conducted in 2023.

At Tuesday’s meeting, school district director of facilities maintenance Marin Trujillo said that it will take four to five weeks to conduct an analysis of what type of contaminants are present at the site in order to determine how to proceed with the clean-up. He said the district will also evaluate the condition of the trees to see what may need to be removed to mitigate future fire risk. 

According to Trujillo, the timeline to demolish the building will depend on how fast the insurance company processes the claim but he estimates that it will take weeks, not months.  

Eric Reason, who has lived in Vallejo for 65 years and moved to South Vallejo in 1997, said that he worked for several years with the Boys and Girls Club and a daycare that operated out of the Grant School. 

“It’s sad to see it gone. I'm very suspicious about how it is gone now,” he said. “I don't believe for a minute that the homeless person set it on fire. The grass was up four or five feet high prior to that, and all of a sudden it was cut, and then it's burned down.”

Trujillo said that he would like to dispel any rumors that this was somehow an intentional plot to leverage insurance to cover demolishing the school. “I just want to be very clear, we didn't do that. That's not how it happened,” he said.

Tisby said that a community member called with concerns about overgrown vegetation at the site. The school district maintenance department cut back overgrown vegetation about a week before the building burned.

Olina Hernandez, who lives on Sixth Street a block away from the school, said that she is concerned that homeless individuals may come back to use the building again.

Trujillo said because of potential exposure to toxins and other dangers the district is also concerned about anybody entering the site including children playing in the neighborhood. 

In order to ensure that nobody accesses the site, Trujillo said that the district currently has a security service monitoring the property in the afternoons and at night and will begin 24-hour security service on Thursday. The security service will continue monitoring the site until demolition begins.

Residents also expressed interest in participating in the process to decide how the property will be developed.

Trujillo said that the district is open to selling or leasing the property but how it is developed would depend on the buyer or lessee's needs as well as the city and the community’s interests going forward. 

Planning Commissioner Tara Beasley-Stansberry, who is running for City Council, said that she would like to see workforce housing for teachers and parents developed on the site. 

South Vallejo resident Robin Parrish suggested using the property for a solar farm to help residents in the neighborhood who are struggling to pay their electricity bills. 

Councilmember Helen-Marie Gordon, who was also a panelist at the meeting, said that she has long been interested in the property because she would like to see a grocery store in South Vallejo again.

Suzanne Madison, a co-organizer of the community meeting and Grant school alumna, said that she plans to continue holding the meetings on a monthly basis until community concerns about the property are resolved. 

Residents who are interested in more information about additional meetings can contact her at suzannemadison626@gmail.com.