BUSD approves additional boring, time for soils and geotechnical testing contract for potential Citro school

Joe Naiman

Village News Reporter

The Bonsall Unified School District may be adding an elementary school on the Citro property and has contracted with Construction Testing and Engineering for soils testing and geotechnical services to determine whether a site on the Citro property will be suitable for a school. The Nov. 19 BUSD board meeting included a contract amendment to address unforeseen conditions.

The 4-0 board vote, with Michael Gaddis absent, increases the boring depth from 20 feet to 34 feet, increases the contract amount from $24,935 to $39,435, and extends the contract end date from June 30, 2022, to June 30, 2023.

“This again is the school district doing its due diligence to ensure the feasibility of building an additional school on the Citro property to serve that community,” said BUSD Superintendent Joseph Clevenger.

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 Bonsall Unified School District. 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.

In December 2021, the BUSD board voted 5-0 to award the soils and materials inspection services contract to Construction Testing and Engineering, which is headquartered in Escondido. The contract amount was $24,700, and the school district budgeted a 5% contingency to cover unforeseen conditions.

The school district and Construction Testing and Engineering worked with Tri Pointe Homes to obtain access to the land being tested. “I appreciate Tri Pointe Homes. They’ve been very strong partners,” Clevenger said.

The Construction Testing and Engineering scope of work included 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.

Unforeseen conditions were discovered, and it became necessary to perform the additional borings to 34 feet in order to assess the rockfall hazard noted in the report provided by the Tri Pointe Homes and site percolation for stormwater management.