The Palo Alto Jewish community is preparing for a potential legal battle to prevent the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center from being evicted from its current location.
After toying with the idea of making a parcel of district land available to the JCC, the Palo Alto school board instead voted last week to investigate the use of eminent domain proceedings to obtain the JCC site to open another middle school.
At issue is the site itself, called Terman, which was a middle school until the school board closed it in 1978 and sold it to the city in 1981.
The city turned the buildings into the Terman Community Center, which the JCC began leasing from the city in 1983.
But now the Palo Alto school system is bursting at the seams and it wants to open a middle school in 2003 at the old Terman location to alleviate the overcrowding.
Six different options were formally presented to the public on Aug. 8, two of which were recently ruled out by the school board.
The only one the JCC would consider is a “land swap” for a piece of property it would lease at Churchill Avenue at El Camino Real, where the school district has its current headquarters.
That option “piques our interest because we’ve done some research, and we think it can work for us,” Sandy Blovad, executive director of the JCC, said.
The JCC has seven years left on its current lease, with an option to renew for 25 years.
Blovad said a meeting was to take place on Wednesday night at the JCC to mobilize the local Jewish community’s support.
“The potential loss of [the site] is no longer just a JCC issue but a Jewish community issue,” he said.
Blovad characterized the school district’s threat of eminent domain proceedings as “displacement of the center.”
With the district’s decision, he added, “everything goes to a different level. With this latest action, we’ve now raised the bar a little bit.”
Cathy Kroymann, the school board president, characterized eminent domain proceedings differently, but said that the board was considering such a step because the issue was at such a standstill.
“We haven’t decided to go down the path of eminent domain, but we’re deciding what are the next steps to take,” said Kroymann. “It just may be the only way we’re going to break this logjam.”
Saying that it was in the interest of all parties to resolve this as soon as possible, she said, even if the school board does “go down the path of eminent domain, it doesn’t mean we put the JCC out on the street.”
Although the Jewish community was to meet on Wednesday, everything remains more or less on hold until the city has a public hearing about the issue on Sept. 11.
“The ball is in their court,” said Kroymann, referring to the city of Palo Alto.
Andy Faber, a Los Gatos-based lawyer who is representing the JCC, agreed that it is in everyone’s best interest to settle this out of court.
“Eminent domain is not a constructive way to resolve the problem,” said Faber. “There are a number of parties involved, and they all want a reasonable solution, but this won’t help that occur.”
Calling the case “very messy and complex,” Faber said pursuing this route was not beneficial for either side.
“It’s not useful for them to rattle the saber the way they have been. Eminent domain doesn’t magically produce money or land. It’s not a panacea.”
“This is a classic problem that can be solved by multi-party negotiations in good faith,” Faber added.