Actions by the Trump administration have created a new roadblock for the Scotts Valley Middle School reconstruction project.
Scotts Valley School Superintendent Tanya Krause reported to her board of trustees this week that just as the district was about to post its approved mitigation plan for the endangered Mount Hermon June Beetle, the President signed an executive order freezing all pending Environmental Protection Agency rules, including a freeze on all permits pending before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a sister agency in the Department of the Interior.
That has stopped the district’s middle school reconstruction plan in its tracks, said Krause.
“We are at the goal line and he [the President] put it on hold,” she said Wednesday.
The beetle, polyphylla barbata, is a little scarab whose only habitat in the world is Scotts Valley and the sandhills around the Zayante Creek watershed.
Krause had obtained final approvals of the district’s plan to ease the impact of the school construction project on the beetle habitat and only needed to post the plan and allow for a 30-day comment period before getting the green light from the state for the $40 million reconstruction project.
The district had hoped to break ground for a new middle school gymnasium this summer, with a late 2018 completion date for the entire project.
The district has completed the bidding process and tentatively selected a construction contractor.
“We are extremely disappointed after all this work,” Krause said. “The federal government is blocking our ability to move forward.”
“We’re going to persist and do what it takes to make this happen,” she said.
