After two years of controversy, Ross Valley School District trustees have agreed to sell the property that houses the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center.
The board of trustees voted 5-0 Wednesday in favor of selling the district-owned property inside Deer Park in Fairfax to the nonprofit Seiderman Legacy Children’s Fund for $2 million.
The agreement specifies that the nonprofit will immediately lease the property back to the children’s center. That will allow one of the few subsidized child care centers in Marin for low-income families to remain intact.
“I feel enthusiastic about all of the possibilities for the future for the Fairfax-San Anselmo Children’s Center,” Heidi Toimsky, the center’s executive director, said Thursday.
“ln the true spirit of our founding director, Ethel Seiderman, we all stayed the path of our dreams and commitment to the future of humanity,” Tomsky said. “She taught me that there is no backing down from doing what you know is the right thing.”
Although a previous eviction order filed by the district against the center will stay intact until at least the close of escrow in 60 days, it is not expected to be acted upon, said Terry Tao, the district’s attorney.
Ross Valley district trustee Ryan O’Neil, who worked with the nonprofit’s board leader Andrew Giacomini on the deal, said it was “a long and hard road” to get to a positive resolution.
“I’m really proud of our team that we were able to put aside any differences and do what we always thought was right,” O’Neil said. “It’s a great win-win-win.”
Giacomini said it is a good start to a new chapter.
“We’re all very happy every time we can move in a direction that shows a commitment to kids — and to continue to move forward,” Giacomini said Wednesday.
In addition to Giacomini, a San Geronimo resident, the board of the newly formed nonprofit includes Paul Cohen, Janelle Fazackerley, Elliot Levin and Bobbie Wunch, according to a resolution submitted by the nonprofit to the district.
Tao said Wednesday that both the district and the nonprofit completed all the technical requirements needed to make the purchase and sale come together.
For the nonprofit, the submission of cross-enrollment data necessary to justify the discount on the sale price from the original $3 million to $2 million was crucial, Tao said.
The data was to provide documentation of the community benefits offered by the center.
The district had been trying, without success, to get the data for many months while the district engaged in a rigorous, yearlong technical process to declare the property as surplus and then offer it to various public entities for sale.
“I very much appreciated us receiving the documentation that we needed,” trustee Shelley Hamilton said Wednesday. “The only reason I was able to hang in there for all this time was my core belief that it was the right thing to do.”
Fairfax Town Councilmember Stephanie Hellman said the town has pledged $25,000 to the nonprofit to help in the purchase. Other donors include the Marin Community Foundation and the county.
Hellman said she was “really happy” to see the sale go through.
“This sends a great message to our surrounding community,” she said.
At issue moving forward, O’Neil said, is the need to move on improvements to safety at all the children’s center buildings. The purchase agreement does not include a requirement for safety upgrades, but O’Neil said he will hold the center and the community responsible to make it happen.
“As a leader in the community, I’m always concerned about child safety,” he said. “It wasn’t just about getting the money and moving on.”
O’Neil reminded Giacomini at the meeting that the center in December proposed several phases of improvements, including parking upgrades, a state-of-the-art fire alarm system, and work on the bathrooms and electrical system.
“I challenge the community to follow through on the safety improvements,” O’Neil said. The center has already applied for $2.5 million in federal earmarks to complete improvements and repairs in 2025.
The saga began in spring 2022 after Tao told trustees that the property was unsafe and needed about $8 million worth of work to bring it up to local and state code. Tao said at the time that without the improvements, the district and trustees could be held liable if something bad happened.
At the time, he recommended the district evict the center due to the liability concerns, kicking off a massive community outcry.
The district did not act on Tao’s recommendation, but instead initiated the yearlong process to declare the property surplus and offer it for sale to a public entity or back to the center operators.
For various reasons, such a sale did not happen and the district earlier this year initiated eviction proceedings.
That was when Giacomini, an attorney and the son of the late Marin County supervisor Gary Giacomini, stepped forward to create the nonprofit and complete the technical requirements that the district needed.
“This is a phoenix rising from the ashes,” trustee Chris Landles-Cobb said Wednesday. “I’m glad we’re not letting these children down. Our level of concern never wavered.”
The center’s board of directors has vowed to begin improvements to the buildings immediately. The first phase includes work at the parking lot and installing a state-of-the-art fire alarm system.
