LIVE OAK >> After years of back and forth, a local nonprofit said it has made an offer to purchase a senior center in Live Oak while a representative from the school district that owns the site says it isn’t quite ready to make definitive moves.

Meals on Wheels for Santa Cruz County, a program from Watsonville-based nonprofit Community Bridges, announced in a recent release that it has submitted a letter of intent to the Live Oak School District to purchase the Elena Baskin Live Oak Senior Center at 1777 Capitola Road for $2.4 million.

“School districts across California are facing severe budget crises as the birth rate continues to plummet and cost of living continues to skyrocket, forcing families to leave for more affordable enclaves,” said Community Bridges CEO Raymon Cancino in the release. “This deal would not only preserve critical older adult services but allow the Live Oak School District to continue the development of its workforce housing project and stop planned layoffs that hurt local teachers, students, classified staff, schools, and, ultimately, the community.”

Meals on Wheels and neighboring nonprofit Senior Network Services have operated out of the facility since the 1970s. Last year, Meals on Wheels distributed about 250,000 meals to older adults, many of whom were homebound, according to the release.

Balancing needs

The property is currently owned by the school district, which has planned since at least 2018 to transform the 1.4-acre plot of land into workforce housing. Those plans have since ignited a lengthy and sometimes contentious negotiation, as the parties tried to balance the school district’s need for housing with the unique facility features that have made it an ideal location for the nonprofits and their services to elderly and low-income residents for more than 45 years.

According to the release from Community Bridges, the offer includes an option for the district to purchase a nearby property the nonprofit believes would work for an affordable housing project.

In a recent interview with the Sentinel, Live Oak School District Board President Kristin Pfotenhauer said the district is interested in a potential deal with Meals on Wheels, but also must first ensure it has secured another location that will meet the scope and scale of its workforce housing plans.

“We are truly interested,” said Pfotenhauer, “but we also need to protect that property until we have an identified site that will work and we’re actively in that process.”

According to the release from Community Bridges, the two nonprofits have received eviction dates on three separate occasions from the district that were subsequently extended. Both now operate on month-to-month leases while working toward a two-year lease agreement.

Other options

As of last Friday, Pfotenhauer said Community Bridges had not shared the exact location it had in mind for the district’s housing project, but from the details it gleaned in conversations so far, she said, it sounds smaller than the district’s current property on Capitola Road that the housing project was originally designed for.

“It doesn’t sound like it will support the number of units we would like so it wouldn’t be our first choice,” said Pfotenhauer. “We are looking at other sites.”

Pfotenhauer told the Sentinel last year that the district was pursuing a project to build at least 50 units for its employees with a goal for them to spend no more than 30% of their income on rent. The project emerged amid major concerns that the county’s exceptionally high housing costs and low wages are making it impossible for teachers and other employees to live and work here.

Corey Azevedo, the executive director for Senior Network Services, said in a statement to the Sentinel that the local community deserves both quality teachers and senior support services. He suggested the purchase could ease the district’s financial struggles and recently announced plans for employee cuts and hopes it “agrees quickly to sell the property.”

“The seniors of Live Oak deserve a Senior Center and meal site, the kids of Live Oak deserve a quality education … as a community we can have both,” wrote Azevedo. “Unfortunately, Live Oak School District (LOSD) has embarked on a course of action that has resulted in them facing an immediate multi-million dollar budget shortfall and severe cuts to staff are impending. Fortunately, community senior services agencies have made an offer to buy the Live Oak Senior Center from LOSD for 2.4 million dollars.”

Pfotenhauer said the district is early in the process of exploring another potential housing site in the district, but couldn’t share where it was exactly. She said the district hopes to have more information about the feasibility of that site by the end of April.

“If that doesn’t come through I think at that point we would need to clearly look at the piece of property they have in mind and see whether it would be sufficient,” said Pfotenhauer. “Maybe not ideal, but at least be sufficient.”

Financial woes

In a letter sent to the Live Oak School District last month, the Santa Cruz County Office of Education assigned the district with a negative financial certification after reviewing a recent interim financial report. Santa Cruz County Office of Education spokesperson Nick Ibarra confirmed that Live Oak is the only district in the county with a negative certification and the first to receive one since the 2014-2015 school year.

According to the letter, the interim report projected an unrestricted ending fund balance in the general fund of $109,545 for fiscal year 2024-2025, far below the state’s required reserve of more than $854,000, and an ending fund deficit of more than $4 million in fiscal year 2025-2026.

In a response to the letter, the district has submitted a draft financial stabilization plan that will be considered by its board Wednesday that includes significant cuts to classified employee positions.

Pfotenhauer has previously told the Sentinel that the district’s financial woes are due, in part, to declining enrollment and attendance, loss of some supportive state and federal grants and a discrepancy between what is received and what is needed for the awards that remain.

She acknowledged that a quick purchase agreement with Meals on Wheels could boost the district’s reserve, but said employee cuts are still needed for long-term financial stability.

“In reality, the cuts will still need to be made,” Pfotenhauer said.

If voters pass the district’s $44 million bond measure — Measure H — in the upcoming March 5 election, the money could be used for classroom and facility upgrades and maintenance, said Pfotenhauer, but not for educator housing efforts.