CLOUDS LOOM OVER SKY BLUE MESA SCHOOL BUILDING IRKS RESIDENTS.

Byline: SUE DOYLE Staff Writer

CANYON COUNTRY -- Pat Phelan has lived in the same house on Ermine Street for 32 years and has seen neighbors come and go.

But now there's one new addition that he and others want to oust from their quiet enclave of one-story, single-family homes.

It's a two-story building now under construction at Sky Blue Mesa School. The structure sits 50 feet from his backyard fence.

Phelan and others on the street said they didn't know about plans to build the structure, and now that it's here, it invades their privacy and blocks their view.

And they want it gone.

``Our main goal is to move the darn thing,'' he said.

As construction for new homes gets under way in the area, Sky Blue Mesa School is gearing up for an additional 200 students.

This nine-room building is one way the Saugus Union School District will accommodate them, said Superintendent Judy Fish.

The school board voted in approval of the building in May 2005. The campus will also get a new multi-purpose room and play area.

After fielding complaints about the new building, Fish recently visited the backyards of Phelan and next-door neighbor Curtis Randoll, who said the structure looks like a Costco.

``You can see to him there is an impact in terms of his view,'' she said.

The two-story building and the scaffolding wrapped around it dominate the view from inside Randoll's home office and from his backyard.

After this week's school board meeting, attended by many Ermine Street residents, district officials offered suggestions to relieve the problem, such as planting evergreen trees and installing a screen for privacy. Recommendations were also made to restructure a staircase outside the building, so it faces the campus instead of the neighborhood.

But residents said the solutions are too little, too late and that they are still angry about the situation.

Having never received notices in advance of the building's construction, they charged the district's business department with intentionally misleading them. Bob Cutting, assistant superintendent of business, did not return calls for comment.

``Now we're arguing to take it down, not whether it goes up or down,'' Randoll said.

But Fish said the structure has been discussed in school board meetings since August 2004.

The Ermine Street residents, who don't attend the school board meetings, said that they still expected school officials to communicate directly with them about projects that could affect their homes.

Meanwhile, Fish said the district is doing everything it can to help the residents with their concerns and see that they will be better informed from now on.

``I think we can be a better neighbor,'' she said.

sue.doyle(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Residents near Sky Blue Mesa School in Canyon Country are upset over the construction of a two-story classroom building by their homes that they say blocks their views. With the district in need of more classroom space to accommodate a growing enrollment, the district says the expansion is necessary.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Curtis Randoll, left, has the entire view from his office taken up by a new two-story building being built at Sky Blue Mesa School behind his home. Locals say the district should have put the building, above, elsewhere. The district argues the construction was discussed publicly since 2004 at school board meetings.

David Crane/Staff Photographer