A frustrated neighbor contacted our newsroom asking why the vacant school across from her home is still standing. It is regularly vandalized and has even been set on fire in the past.
The vacant building is owned by Bakersfield Adventist Academy. Marsha Parr is a neighbor who feels the building she calls the "war zone" is a safety hazard and an eyesore.
"When I look out my bedroom window, what I see looks like what I imagine Iraq or Afghanistan to look like. With the buildings with broken windows, they look like they have been bombed out. I know there have been fires in there before I moved in here," says Parr.
Vandalism is a big problem with the old building. There have been two fires within the last three years. Even more recently, smaller fires have broken out because of dried weeds.
"In the two years that I have lived here there have been two fires on the fence line. Both times I had to call the fire department," says Parr.
Bakersfield Adventist Academy built a new school on its 10 acre property, but left the old building to basically rot.
"We put about a 100 gallons of paint on the building over here. It would be wonderful if we could have it be a park, but resources being what they are in a downturn economy and so on, has kept the lot from being sold and developed at this point," says Mike Schwartz, Bakersfield Adventist Academy principal.
With monetary resources being the big problem here, the school looks to sell part of its land.
"The property is going to be zoned for multi-property dwellings down the road. Its not going to happen tomorrow or the next day but hopefully over the next several months progress will be made," says Schwartz.
At this point it's difficult to say whether the property will be sold. And with regards to the weeds, Principal Schwartz says they are cleared every spring by volunteers but, with limited resources, there's not much more else the school can do.
