Plan for fence at Adams Elementary School draws protest

Tempers flared Thursday night at a meeting about a proposed fence at Adams Elementary School, with opponents of the plan brandishing placards outside the Costa Mesa school and a teacher accusing protesters of throwing a “tantrum.”

A bone of contention: 40 feet. The school fields aren’t fenced, and the Newport-Mesa Unified School District plans to install a wrought-iron fence to enclose them. Some neighbors have asked the district to move the proposed fence 40 feet inward, essentially shrinking the school fields and enlarging the adjacent Mesa Verde Park, a city park that is popular with the community.

That 40 feet, some say, would preserve the park’s open feel and show the district’s willingness to compromise. Many said Thursday that they enjoy the unfenced expanse when they use the park and the fields on weekends and during non-school hours.

But district officials contend they have made concessions. They said moving the fence 40 feet would require redoing part of the sprinkler system at a cost of $70,000 to $80,000.

The idea to fence the school arose after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012. Of Newport-Mesa’s 22 elementary schools, Adams is one of three that lack fencing around the entire campus.

In July, trustees voted on a plan to fence Adams and add safety measures. The district convened an Adams Fence Design Committee that met twice last year, district officials said.

James Lamond, the district’s director of facilities development, planning and design, told those gathered Thursday that gates in the new fence would be open before and after school and on weekends. The fence, on the north side of the campus, would begin at the corner of a portable building and end at a residential fence at the rear of the fields.

Lamond said the district would replace existing chain-link fencing with wrought iron, reconfigure the school entrance to increase safety, and add a front gate and new landscaping.

Not everyone liked the plan.

Protesting outside the school, Kathy Esfahani, a member of the fence committee, said committee members were duped into believing the district would heed their recommendations, such as moving the fence 40 feet. She said the district is ramrodding its plan without fully vetting alternatives.

Some protesters brandished homemade signs reading, “Please, NMUSD, delay the fence plan!”

Inside, about 45 neighbors, parents and teachers debated the issue, at times talking over one another and booing some comments.

Susan Astarita, assistant superintendent of elementary education, said during the meeting that the district listened to committee input. She said the district agreed not to extend the fence behind portable buildings, which would have cut into what some residents consider park area but is actually school land.

“There is still 12 feet of district property that is assigned to that park area,” Astarita said.

Angie Thorpe, a member of the fence committee, disagreed with her committee colleagues.

“The school should keep the property,” Thorpe said. “Putting the fence there makes the most sense.”

At times, the discussion digressed into a primer on sprinkler heads, timers and low-voltage wiring. Some residents said the district’s cost estimates to move the sprinklers sounded exorbitant.

“You have raised economic considerations that wewould like proven,” Esfahani told Lamond.

One teacher, who declined to give her name, compared committee members to her child, who doesn’t like to hear the word “no.” They were throwing a “temper tantrum,” she said.

A bid for the fence work will likely go before the school board sometime this spring, Lamond said. The fence is expected to be installed in the summer.

Lamond said Friday that a similar plan to fence Costa Mesa’s Victoria Elementary School is underway. The school is expected to get a new wrought-iron fence along the front, a reconfigured entrance and new shrubbery this summer.

The district also plans to install a gray, metal picket-style fence this summer at Andersen Elementary School in Newport Beach. The fence will run along the sides, back and part of the front of the school. Several gates in the fence will be unlocked before and after school and on weekends, Lamond said during a community meeting Monday. He also described plans for new accent trees and landscaping.