Quick Take:
Ben Lomond’s historic and beloved Little Red Alba Schoolhouse was lost in the CZU fire of 2020 and was supposed to have been rebuilt. Now it appears it won't be. Daniel DeLong considers the implications of legacy being sacrificed for money, and makes a humble request.
On the south coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, there was once a spectacular blowhole called the Kukui’ula Seaplume, where waves crashing into an underwater cave blasted seawater up through a hole in the lava rock, creating a spray that could reach 200 feet high.
But the Kukui’ula Seaplume is no longer there. It’s gone.
It’s gone because one Sunday morning in 1920, the manager of a nearby sugar plantation ordered one of his workers to drop dynamite down the hole. Seems the salty spray would sometimes land on a small section of the cane field, stunting the growth of those plants.
So they blew it up.
Now let’s take a sharp turn to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Alba Schoolhouse. We aren’t headed toward a perfect metaphor, but I promise it’ll swing back around.
The historic Alba Schoolhouse was built in 1895 so children on Alba Road wouldn’t have to make the 2-mile trip down (and back up) the mountain to the town of Ben Lomond every day on foot. Tragically, it was lost in the CZU Lightning Complex fire of 2020. During its 125-year existence, it had served as a school, a library and, for the last 70 years, a community center administered by the Alba Parks and Recreation District. Comprising only 48 parcels and about 200 people, Alba is believed to be the smallest parks and rec district in the entire state of California.
Community is critical in the mountains, and the Alba Schoolhouse was the center of ours. Our neighborhood on Alba Road took pride in our historic little building, kept it up, maintained it. We hosted monthly potlucks for local families. A couple of my good friends got married there.
It was once suggested that if civilization were ever to collapse, and we became an isolated post-apocalyptic mountain tribe fighting for survival, we could reopen it as a school for our kids. (OK, it might have been me who suggested it.)
Alba Parks and Rec receives zero dollars from property taxes (board members are all volunteers from the neighborhood), so to keep the lights on, the board rented the space out (classes, parties) and held an annual Fourth of July fundraising event with food and auctions and live music. But for the pandemic, 2020 would have been the 125th one of those, which typically drew over a hundred people from all over the SLV. So, on Independence Day, my family and I went down and raised the flag, just so the 125-year chain wouldn’t be broken.
It would be the last time the flag was ever raised at the Alba Schoolhouse.
A month and a half later, it burned to the ground, along with over 900 homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Shortly after the fire, the concept of rebuilding the Alba Schoolhouse began to gather steam. For us, the idea of this little building rising from the ashes became a powerful symbol of the resilience of our community – a touchstone for our healing.
The San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District owns the property (Alba Parks and Rec leases it for a token fee) and it was insured. The challenge was convincing the district to put that money into rebuilding.
For months we lobbied, wrote letters, hung banners and made stickers. We held a Fourth of July fundraiser event. We attended board meetings and made public comments, and lo and behold, in July 2021, they voted to rebuild! We were ecstatic.
Discussions about architects followed, septic considerations; a few test holes got drilled.
And then, a few months later, it got quiet. Things stopped happening in 2022. Replies to inquiries became short or nonexistent.
But we kept at it, continuing our Fourth of July fundraisers through 2022 and 2023. We dragged the school’s bell – a 200-plus-pound monster salvaged from the fire – to various events. We applied for grants. Every dime collected by Beeline Blooms (my crazy wife’s flower farm) during its first season went to the Alba Schoolhouse fund, for which we eventually created a nonprofit. In all, we raised over $15,000.
We did all these things and still it was quiet. We were getting worried.
What’s happening with the rebuild? We’re continuing to raise money for things insurance won’t cover (like repair of the well), so what’s the deal?
The deal appears to be: The San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District was able to negotiate a bigger cash payout for NOT rebuilding (nearly twice the half million-ish stipulated in the policy), presumably because rebuilding was going to cost the insurance company much more than that.
Big win for the SLV Unified School District, big win for the insurance company. Everybody wins!
Yeah. Not everybody.
Today that sugar plantation on Kauai is long gone, and whatever extra profit was realized a century ago by those several acres of sugarcane plants not being slightly stunted by salty ocean spray was quickly dispersed and forgotten and absorbed into the cavernous murk of time and ultimate meaninglessness.
So the tragedy of the Kukui’ula Seaplume’s destruction is matched only by the triviality of the reason it was destroyed: for a little bit of money nobody remembers.
All that’s left is a semi-rectangular depression on the lava shelf.
The Alba Schoolhouse is also gone. All that remains are a few stanchions and some redwood trees with partially blackened trunks, occupying a tiny vacant lot now used mostly by PG&E (and whomever else) as a convenient place to stage equipment.
And it’s looking like it’s going to stay gone; a legacy allowed to die for some money.
OK, to be fair: $900,000 (the amount the SLV School District will realize) is not a “little bit” of money. A public school district bears no moral equivalency to exploitative 19th-century Hawaiian sugarcane plantations and, no, the SLVUSD didn’t blow up the Alba Schoolhouse.
I said it wasn’t a perfect metaphor.
But over the course of the next 125 years, as the money comes and the money goes, what will remain to show for it? At this point, it’s looking like it won’t be Alba Schoolhouse 2.0.
If on Dec.13 the SLV board votes to not rebuild, the next question is what they will do with the parcel itself. Seeing as they are going to make out pretty well on this deal, I have a suggestion: Donate it to Alba Parks and Rec.
We can’t afford to rebuild the structure, but we can make something (a little park, perhaps) and in time, who knows? Maybe this legacy doesn’t have to die.
Or maybe the Alba Schoolhouse is just destined to just go the way of the Kukui’ula Seaplume, to become nothing more than nostalgia; another victim of the Bottom Line.
It’s been gone for over three years now. The “Rebuild The Alba Schoolhouse” banner still hangs on the side of Alba Road, but for a lot of people, the urgency has left. And you can’t blame them. It’s important to move forward, to no longer frame everything around the CZU fire. People are finding their healing wherever they find it; some are likely still searching.
But I know a place where a small community can find at least a piece of theirs.
To the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District board of trustees:
In the end you’ll make nearly a million bucks because of the CZU Lightning Complex fire. We don’t begrudge you that. Good for you. Kids in the SLV deserve everything they can get.
All we’re asking for is this tiny parcel of land. Give our community a chance to bring back some version of a beloved thing that was lost.
Keep the money.
Just give us the dirt.
Daniel DeLong is a retired firefighter who has lived in the San Lorenzo Valley for 31 years, over half of that time on upper Alba Road. If you feel strongly about this issue, he encourages you to express that to the San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District board of trustees.