Eureka City Schools can be facing legal action

EUREKA, Calif.(KIEM)- Eureka City Schools are now facing likely legal action from real estate developers over the district’s decision to implement new building permit fees.

Eureka’s school Superintendent defends the decision to charge these developer fees saying the district needs the matching revenue in order to obtain millions of dollars in state grants.

The money would be used for new pre-school class-room facilities to deal with an expected influx of students as the state implements a universal transitional kindergarten program.

“And so in order for us to qualify for that grant, we had to implement the developer fees. And the board decided leveraging some local developer fees in order to bring in that $5.6 million from Sacramento was worth it. Now, the $5.6 million is not guaranteed at this point, but we will certainly be very competitive for it. And if we did not have the developer fees in place, we wouldn’t be competitive for those dollars at all,” said Fred Van Vleck, Eureka City Schools Superintendent.