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Despite vehement opposition from neighborhood activists and City Hall, the Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday night to move its Adult School from a dilapidated building on University Avenue to an old elementary school site just a few blocks away. 

The vote came after months of heated meetings, a strongly worded letter from City Manager Weldon Rucker and more than an hour of testimony from opponents and supporters Wednesday night—including a rare appearance by a City Councilmember. 

“To get along with your neighbors or anyone else, I think you have to work with them,” said Councilmember Margaret Breland, addressing the school board. 

“I want the...neighbors to know that I’ve weighed this many, many times in many different ways,” said school board Director John Selawsky, before the vote. 

But neighbors of the current Adult School and the old City of Franklin Elementary School on Virginia Street, where it is slated to move, stormed out of the meeting after the vote, declaring that the school board had failed to listen to their concerns. 

“They just steamroll over what other people say,” said Connie McCullah, an Adult School neighbor. “I think it’s very insulting.” 

McCullah and others say the Adult School is a good neighbor and bristle at talk of moving the school district’s administrative and maintenance operations to the University Avenue site, once it is vacated.  

Those who live near the Franklin site say they are worried about an increase in traffic, parking and crime, among other things, once the Adult School moves to their neighborhood. 

Now that the project is approved, one resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said neighbors may tap funds they have raised for a lawsuit against the school district. 

The district plans to select a construction company for a $6.5 million overhaul of Franklin by Oct. 15, with work to begin Nov. 1. Officials hope to finish the project in time to move the Adult School to Franklin in time for the 2004-2005 school year. 

City Manager Rucker raised concerns about the move in a July 29 letter. Citing district studies, arguing that the move is part of a broader building swap that would, among other things, relocate the district’s administrative headquarters to University Avenue once the Adult School leaves. 

Rucker pointed out that the district, in its environmental review of the project, is required to address the impacts of the “full” project and not just one segment. The district’s failure to discuss the future of the University Avenue site, he wrote, meant the environmental review was not valid. 

District officials have made it clear in recent months that they do, indeed, plan to move their administrative headquarters to University Avenue. The top brass currently works out of Berkeley’s Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, but the district’s $1-per-year lease on the building expires in 2009 and the city, which owns the structure, wants it back. 

But district officials argued Wednesday night that there are no solid plans for the University Avenue building and that the environmental review, as a result, did not need to include a discussion of its future. 

About 20 teachers, students and administrators from the Adult School showed up at the board meeting to voice support for the move, telling stories of poor lighting, a broken heating system, inadequate wiring and an antiquated telephone system at the current site. 

Adult School Principal Margaret Kirkpatrick said the school has to buy phones at flea markets because modern models don’t work with the old system. 

George Coates, who teaches a public speaking class at the Adult School, said the program needs a new building as a sign of respect for the institution, which provides English as a Second Language, dance, literature and financial planning courses to more than 1,300 students per day. 

“It’s leaky, it’s creaky, it’s depressing,” he said. “The letters on the front of the building are falling off—people think you can’t spell.” 

School board Director Nancy Riddle, who voted for the project, said she did not find arguments about a broken-down building compelling. The district planned to overhaul the University Avenue site whether the Adult School moved or not, she noted. 

But Riddle said she was concerned that the Adult School would have to move twice if it was to remain in the University Avenue building—once to a temporary home during construction, and then back again. 

Kirkpatrick said two moves would have destroyed the cohesiveness of the school community. 

“If we don’t have this permanent move...I just don’t see how the program can stay as viable,” she said. 

Neighbors said they were concerned about the welfare of the Adult School, but were not convinced that the move made sense for the program. They said district officials listened to this complaint and others at community meetings, but did not truly weigh neighbors’ concerns. 

“The district blew a chance to show that it was really turning over a new leaf,” said Phyllis Orrick. “This signal tells me that it will continue to be business as usual. This does not bode well for the health of the institution.” 

School board Director Shirley Issel said the district and the neighbors ultimately had “irreconcilable differences.” But ultimately, she said, the Adult School move would benefit the neighborhood. 

“I sincerely believe that the worst problem facing the [Franklin] neighborhood is the prospect of an empty site,” she said. “You could have no better neighbor than the Adult School.” 

The final vote was 4-0. Director Terry Doran was absent, dealing with a family emergency.