Schoolhouse site sells for $400K

A prominent Modesto cemetery will buy the site of the old John Muir schoolhouse destroyed by arson two years ago.

Acacia Memorial Park Association, whose cemetery is among those fronting Scenic Drive, will pay City Hall $400,000 for the historic school site just north of the cemetery at 800 E. Morris Ave. City Council members unanimously signed off on the deal Tuesday with no discussion.

A judge three weeks ago sentenced Steven Castillo, 19, to five months in jail after he pleaded no contest to a felony count of unlawfully burning a structure.

Early morning flames in October 2007 consumed the musty, red-brick building with high ceilings and half the city's collection of artifacts, including gowns dating to the 1800s, four pianos and a carousel horse.

The school was built in 1923 and became a community center 30 years later, housing groups such as the United Way, Girl Scouts and Modesto League of Women Voters. The city closed the building to the public in 2003 after a consultant deemed it unsafe and too costly to repair.

The sale does not include a city park next to the school site, council members said after Tuesday's meeting.

In other business, city leaders accepted little responsibility for missing a revenue opportunity at Modesto Airport as charged in a July civil grand jury report.

Grand jurors said the city was asleep at the wheel when a 20-year hangar lease ended a few years ago. Terms of the lease gave the hangar to the city upon expiration, but officials "took no action for approximately four years," then approved a 15-year extension that was transferred to a new owner soon after.

"In a period of financial crisis the city has ignored a valuable resource," grand jurors wrote. Officials approved similar extensions for other hangar owners during those leases without renegotiating terms more favorable to the city, the report concluded.

The city's response, approved by unanimous vote Tuesday on the council's consent agenda, amounts to a shrug of the shoulders for Hangar No. 7. The new owner's lease is a legally binding document and can't be renegotiated as urged by the grand jury, the response reads.

Officials think their lease process is "appropriate" and doesn't need a new look, the report reads. But the council agreed to have a property agent review future deals.

Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at gstapley@modbee.com or 578-2390.

This story was originally published September 8, 2009 at 10:46 PM with the headline "Schoolhouse site sells for $400K."