Despite attempts to negotiate a better deal, the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Board of Education Thursday voted 5-1 to pay more than $900,000 to permanently relocate a cellphone tower from the property of the soon-to-be built Ofelia Valdez-Yeager Eastside Elementary School. Trustee Brent Lee voted against the decision.
“The realistic cost is probably more around $400,000,” Assistant Superintendent Orin Williams said at the April 10 meeting. “They are getting basically double the amount that they are entitled to, or deserving, because we’re in a hard place.”
The cellphone tower is owned by SpectraSite Communications, which leased a portion of the property from the property’s previous owners. The district inherited the contract, Williams said, when it bought the land. But it wasn’t until after the purchase was completed that the district received all of the paperwork and discovered the lease would remain in effect for the next 19 years…