Until that meeting, the committee had been caught between mounting budget concerns and a neighborhood that doesn't want to see its open space disappear.

On June 8, 2004, the district and the Sunnyvale City Council held a joint study session to discuss the district's need to find a new use for the Peterson field. Peterson Middle School sits on 48 acres of land, almost 20 more acres than a middle school needs and eight more than a high school would need, according to state guidelines.

The fields alone are 25 acres; the school only needs nine or 10. The district has owned the land since 1961 when it purchased several adjacent parcels for $12,500 an acre. It was cheaper at the time to pay for all the land than to break up plots of land to get just the amount the district needed. Today, at a time the district is suffering severe budget cuts, the acres could sell for almost $3 million each.

The committee seems intent on selling almost a third of the field to an outside group, and residents are trying to preserve those same fields for future use.

For the district, paying to preserve land for residents during a budget crunch is an unnecessary expense.

"We're in the education business," district business administrator Roger Barnes said. "All our money should be going toward educating our students; we're not in the parks or open space business."

The June 15 meeting was meant to gather ideas from the community. But many ideas presented met with just as much opposition as the district's idea to sell the surplus land. One man suggested asking the city to sell off other open space--possibly even the orchards at the Sunnyvale Community Center--to buy the land. That idea was met with jeers and boos.

Another woman suggested saving the land to expand the school's programs, possibly with the help of corporate sponsorship.

The idea of enlisting the help of a business was something the committee urged residents to continue looking at. By finding outside funding for something like a homework center or a sports field, the district could preserve the land for recreation or education purposes while lifting the district's financial burden.

Resident Chris Lea, one of the major proponents of a compromise, suggested residents vote to tax themselves in a "special assessment district" to raise money.

"Land isn't free. Someone around here is going to have to pay for it," Lea said. "It seems like many of the residents want to get something for nothing."

The eight surplus acres would cost about $60,000 annually to maintain. Barnes estimated that 2,250 people live in the immediate area, so any tax would have to be split by a group roughly that size, and require two-thirds of the residents to vote "yes."

Residents in attendance at all meetings about the field have been adamantly opposed to almost any use that would turn the district's land into something other than open space.

But the cash-strapped district does not have the funding to maintain it as usable space, and Barnes said three years of seeking corporate funding has been unsuccessful.

The district used to allow sports leagues to use the land. The fees for league use helped the district pay the almost $260,000 annually to maintain, manage and schedule uses for the field.

The leagues--mostly adult soccer--brought traffic, noise and crowds with them. Almost nine months ago, the district closed the fields to league use because of residents' complaints. But without outside funding, maintenance costs were too much for the district.

These new problems compounded an existing situation--falling water pressure due to rapid housing expansion. Today, dirt and dried grass abound on the field, providing ample space for gophers but hazards for casual bipedal users.

"The field since 1980 has gotten into a really bad state of disrepair," Barnes said.

Although the advisory committee is waiting until September to present its final recommendation to the school district, Barnes said members are relatively sure that declaring eight acres of the field as surplus is going to be their first course of action.

They will keep nine acres of the field for Peterson Middle School use, five more in case a high school is ever needed there--although studies suggest that need won't arise--and an additional five acres as reserve land.

After the land is declared surplus, it goes through a lengthy process of offers to various local and state organizations, beginning with open space groups and ending with private developers.

Barnes said he approached the city to take over maintenance of the field, but the city declined for budget reasons.

Even with a discount, it's unlikely the city can help out. At the June 7 city council meeting, during discussion of a separate issue, it became apparent that there were millions of dollars in projects in the city without funding, and Peterson would have to get in line.

"For this valley, if you have someone say 'You can use the land if you maintain it,' I think it's just a shame that we may not being able to find the funding to do it," said Angelique Reiss, who walks on the fields at night with her husband and son.

The entire process of dealing with Peterson's surplus land could take almost 2 1/2 years. And it won't begin until at least Sept. 9 at a school district board meeting. Barnes said the committee is waiting until summer vacation is over to try to get more community participation at the meeting.

For more information on the advisory committee, visit www.scu.k12.ca.us.