BUSD awards soils and geotechnical testing contracts for potential Citro school

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

Construction Testing and Engineering was awarded the Bonsall Unified School District contract for soils testing and geotechnical services to determine whether a site on the Citro property will be suitable for a BUSD elementary school.

The BUSD board voted 5-0 Dec, 15 to award the soils and materials inspection services contract to Construction Testing and Engineering, which is headquartered in Escondido. The contract amount is for $24,700, and the school district has budgeted a 5% contingency to cover unforeseen conditions.

“BUSD is actively doing due diligence to acquire the approximately 11 acres already designated for a school site, especially since there are over 2,500 new homes projected to be built within district boundaries in the next decade,” said BUSD Board President Larissa Anderson.

The future Citro development was called Meadowood when the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved the subdivision map which included 13 acres for an elementary school which will be built by the BUSD. The school district and Tri Pointe Homes are in negotiations for the acquisition of that land, and the specific location is still a closed session matter for the school board.

On Oct. 13, a pair of 5-0 BUSD board votes authorized district staff to advertise requests for qualifications and requests for proposals for analysis of soils testing and geotechnical services and for architectural services. The school district established a committee to review the requests for qualifications and requests for proposals.

“This is just your due diligence to make sure the land is suitable to build a school," said BUSD Superintendent Joseph Clevenger.

The school district and Construction Testing and Engineering will work with Tri Pointe Homes to obtain access to the land being tested. The Construction Testing and Engineering scope of work includes researching available maps and literature on the site area, reviewing documents relevant to site history and development, coordinating with BUSD officials to mark out proposed exploratory borings, procuring a boring permit from the County of San Diego’s Department of Environmental Health and Quality, drilling 10 exploratory borings to depths of 20 to 50 feet below the ground surface or until practical drilling is prevented by underground material, drilling five additional percolation test borings to a depth of five feet below the ground surface, backfilling the exploratory borings, logging and classifying virtually the materials encountered during the borings, performing laboratory testing on samples, and preparing a report.