Costa Mesa High stadium plans get low marks

Costa Mesa High School athletes and their parents are not entirely pleased with plans for a new $8.5-million stadium for football and track and field events.

They are unhappy that team rooms for home and away football teams weren’t included in plans approved in March by the school board and that as of now there are only 1,000 planned seats. The Mustangs’ new home is slated to open in time for the fall football season.

By contrast, Jim Scott Stadium was built with a capacity of 2,600.

The group, which also includes coaches, boosters and alumni, will meet Monday with the hope that plans can be revised to include team rooms and additional fan seating. Some intend to speak at Tuesday’s Newport-Mesa Unified School District board meeting as well.

“This is an issue we all care about,” said Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Katrina Foley, a Costa Mesa High booster and parent who was on the school board when the stadium plans passed. “The Costa Mesa community wants to be heard and wants to be treated the same as other schools in the district. We’re not getting the same as what Corona del Mar [High School] is getting. And we have more space.”

Many parents and boosters said they had assumed that Mesa’s stadium plans would mirror the amenities at the relatively new Jim Scott Stadium at Estancia High School and other recent projects.

Foley said she was told by school district Supt. Fred Navarro in an email that Mesa’s varsity football team would continue to compete at Jim Scott Stadium because the new facility lacked the necessary amount of seating for those games.

Navarro was unavailable for comment, but Mesa Principal Jacob Haley and school district spokeswoman Annette Franco said that, most likely, stadium information given from district administration to Mesa representatives was misunderstood.

Still, Costa Mesa student-athletes Jonathan Brucales and Ben Swanson, a football player who is Foley’s son, did their best to gather signatures for a petition regarding team rooms and home varsity games.

The Costa Mesa stadium project includes plans for a classroom and more seating in the future, Haley said. The classroom would be used as a team room.

Though amenities often vary, team rooms are generally private spaces for athletes and coaches that are separate from a locker room. Some offer classroom-like amenities and white boards to go over plays, while others are more oriented toward lounging.

Haley said he’ll go to Monday’s meeting to explain the stadium plans.

“Here’s what was voted on by the school board, and here’s what was approved, and we’re thrilled with what we’re getting,” Haley said of what he’ll tell people who attend Monday. “I’ll answer any questions where there might be gray. This is what was approved and what was discussed at the school board meeting [in March] and this is what we’re getting. We’re getting exactly what was talked about. It would have been that time in April, or before that, if you wanted the district to have additional items or something removed. That’s the time it happens. The vote happened.”

Foley contends that completed stadium plans were never shown to the board before and after the vote.

Gary Bermudez has been a parent/booster representative of the Costa Mesa stadium project since 2010. He said he assumed the stadium would include team rooms.

In hindsight, he said, there should have been an oversight committee to make sure nothing was overlooked.

“Nothing was done underhandedly,” Bermudez said. “We just didn’t see it.”

Foley said the lack of team rooms in the stadium project was discovered when a coach asked if lockers could be put in what he mistakenly thought were team rooms in the plans.