Supporters of proposed downtown charter school shut down Vallejo City Hall after council blocks project

VALLEJO – Students and other supporters of a plan to expand a Vallejo charter school into a vacant downtown building shut down Vallejo City Hall with a sit-in protest on Wednesday, a day after the Vallejo City Council voted to block the project.

The council voted 4-3 at a special meeting Tuesday to reject the proposed high school, which would have been operated by Elite Public Schools.

Under the plan, Elite would redevelop a downtown office building at 241-255 Georgia St. as a high school for 400 students. The city Planning Commission approved it in March, but the council vote upheld an appeal.

On Wednesday afternoon, dozens of supporters of the project entered City Hall for a protest. Videos from the protest showed supporters inside chanting, “Education is our right.” They carried signs comparing the city’s denial of the plan to redlining, the historical practice of denying access to homes because of race or economic status.

At about 2:40 p.m., city officials announced that City Hall would be closed for the remainder of the day. “The extremely loud environment has hindered staff and visitors' ability to conduct regular business,” city officials said. “Additionally, due to the number of protestors inside the building, the person capacity of City Hall's public space has been reached.”

Interim City Manager Beverli Marshall later addressed the protesters and told them that the council still had to take one more vote to finalize the decision, which she said would happen on June 4.

The council’s decision came at the end of a series of charged and lengthy meetings where a number of residents expressed concerns that the project did not fit city planning goals of establishing downtown as an arts and entertainment district. Others said that the project would make the downtown unattractive to prospective businesses and could potentially bring violence or crime that occurs at other schools.

Paul Beeman, a former Solano county judge who owns the office building next to the project site, appealed the planning commission’s approval of the project to the City Council on March 28. Residents opposed to the school also circulated a petition citing their concerns about the project, which was signed by more than 500 people.

But many parents and supporters of the school felt that these concerns were nothing more than veiled racism.

“You are showing our children the things that our ancestors were supposed to have overcome,” Shannon McLain, a parent of students enrolled at Elite, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “What is going to make them want to come back to a city that said, ‘You are not good enough to be downtown’?”

Students from Elite have attended each meeting, filling a significant portion of the seats and many made passionate comments about the unique qualities of the school, which has a majority enrollment of students of color.

Elite student Sonja Valdez, who gave her comments in both English and Spanish, said the supportive teachers she met at Elite have been important to her success. She said the quality of education that is available at the school will be important for future generations.

“We are a lot more than ‘low-income kids,’”  Valdez said, referring to a prior comment at Tuesday’s meeting. “We are college bound and we know what we want.”

Another parent of an Elite student, Jameela Hanif, posted the picture of the voting results on social media with a comment describing her and son’s response to the decision. 

“Doesn’t matter if you cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s.” Hanif wrote in the post, “MOST of these people here in THE CITY OF VALLEJO will shut down ANY and EVERY opportunity that will advance BLACK PEOPLE!”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Planning Department Director Christina Ratcliffe responded to over 30 questions posed by City Council members, who postponed their decision after hearing hours of public comment at their meeting last week.

As part of the application process, the Planning Department hired a consultant to conduct a traffic study examining the potential impacts of the project. The consultant, Bill Burton of Fher & Peers, made recommendations for changes to the school’s drop off and pick up zone which Elite incorporated into their plan. But with the mitigations in place the study found that the additional trips from parents dropping off students in the morning and picking students up in the afternoon would have very little impact on the downtown traffic conditions.

Vice Mayor Mina Loera-Diaz questioned the study’s results and said that when she drops her grandson off at school, parents are lined up waiting to get into the drop off zone. Burton said that traffic patterns can vary from location to location and reiterated that he had found that the queuing vehicles for the drop off zone would have little effect on the surrounding intersections. 

The Planning Department also conferred with Economic Development Director Michael Nimon regarding the economic impacts of the school. Nimon provided a memo to city council which stated that although he did not conduct an economic impact study of the project, his personal assessment is that the school will not affect new development activity downtown.

Nimon’s memo also noted that diversification of uses makes the local economy more resilient and that, at the very least, the presence of a school would offer more economic activity than a vacant office building. 

Real estate broker Cherie Hullade, who leases property for the building owner, told the council that Beeman’s claims that the building is better used for retail or other businesses is not borne out by its history.

“I appreciate what the appellant presented with regard to desired other uses but I can tell you, with a 25-year marketing history on this property, it doesn't exist for this building.” She added that the offices have only had a few tenants over the years and much of the building has been vacant for years.

Mayor Robert McConnell and Loera-Diaz both questioned why the Planning Department had not conducted a full economic study of the project. Ratcliffe said that they had looked into hiring a consultant to do an empirical study but the consultant would not be able to complete it until August and it would have cost $20,000. 

When McConnell asked who pays for the study, City Attorney Veronica Nebb said that an economic study is not required as part of the application process so the city would have to negotiate with the project applicant as to who would pay for such a study.

“This study should have been done,” said Lorea-Diaz. “If this was done already we would have everything we need.” 

After hearing final comments from Beeman and the Elite CEORamona Bishop as well as numerous public comments both for and against the project, the council struggled to find a motion that a majority could approve.

Loera-Diaz initially proposed a motion to approve the project but limit it to 200 students pending a review of the project after two years, but Bishop said that the reduction in students would interfere with the project’s financing. 

Palmares proposed a motion to approve the project according to the existing plan for 400 students and add a list of conditions that would be drafted by the council at a later date. 

Both motions failed but Councilmember Peter Bregenzer made a simple motion to deny the project by approving the appeal and overturning the decision of the planning commission.

Bregenzer’s motion passed with councilmembers Diosdado J.R. Matulac, Palmares and Lorea-Diaz opposed.