After the press release of a couple weeks ago, you may have assumed this was a done deal already. It wasn't. Not until last night when CR's Board of Trustees took President Jeff Marsee's advice to abandon controversial plans to acquire Jefferson Elementary School on Eureka's West Side (see "Schoolyard Scrap," Feb. 18, 2010). And ooh-eee does Marsee sound bitter. Click "more" to read his comments, issued today in a press release.

The College of the Redwoods went into the west Eureka community with honest and honorable intentions. Rather than being welcomed and encouraged to invest more than $2 million in scarce resources to use the Jefferson School as an expanded downtown annex, CR was treated as an intruder and deal ‘spoiler.' After CR was threatened with potential legal and regulatory obstacles it became apparent that we could not be successful there at this time. CR just has too many important projects and too few funds to waste time and resources fighting unnecessary community battles.

He went on to wish "all the participating parties the best of luck" doing whatever they're gonna do with the site.