A bungled deal that cost the Broward school district $4.3 million for a patch of unusable land was the fault of the former superintendent and a colleague now embroiled in a corruption scandal, a member of the School Board said Tuesday.

At a meeting to revisit the botched land purchase, board members sounded confused and frustrated about why the land -- 30 acres of mostly wetlands in Southwest Ranches -- was purchased even after warnings from staff that the land couldn't support a new high school.

``If you knew we couldn't build on it, why did it go forward?'' board member Robin Bartleman asked.

The answer, according to board member Stephanie Kraft: former Superintendent Frank Till and suspended board member Beverly Gallagher rammed the deal through.

``There was an agreement with the superintendent and the board member that represented that area that we needed the site,'' Kraft said. ``The superintendent directed the staff to close. The board didn't know that.''

Kraft led a successful effort to oust Till shortly after public controversy erupted over the deal.

Gallagher was suspended in September after federal authorities accused her of taking kickbacks from undercover FBI agents in a corruption probe involving the district's construction program.

The Ranches property is in Gallagher's former district -- and the deal was sealed months after the federal investigation began in 2005.

Till, who now runs a school district in North Carolina, disputed Kraft's account in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon.

```No, no, no -- that's not true,'' Till said. ``The record clearly shows that we brought that back several times to the board.''

Meeting records show the board signed off on a post-closing agreement on the deal on Feb. 21, 2006, without discussion.

A month earlier, district staff had told board members they were under no obligation to buy the property or build a high school there.

The story of the deal began in 2003, when real-estate broker Ira Cor -- a regular contributor to board members' campaigns -- suggested the school district buy the property from the town of Southwest Ranches. The town had hired Cor to suggest the parcel as a location for the planned new high school, then known as LLL.

The board entered into a contract with the town in 2004 to buy the site for about $4.3 million, with the condition that the school district could first survey the land.

A year's worth of research found that the property had more wetland acres than district officials first thought -- too much to leave enough space for a high school.

At that point there were questions about whether the district should buy the land at all, according to 2006 records. Some, including Gallagher, suggested a smaller middle or elementary school could go on that parcel.

Despite having the option to back out, the district closed on the Southwest Ranches deal.

Three years later, the property sits empty. The new school, West Broward High, is open -- in Pembroke Pines.

The district paid $25 million for that parcel, which was dry. But board members found out only recently that the district has to pay a lifetime fee for the property -- a fluctuating amount that currently stands at about $14,000 per quarter.

On Tuesday, Tom Coates, the district's executive director of facilities management, planning and site acquisition, told board members the Southwest Ranches parcel is not unusable.

The state has prohibited Broward from building any new schools for now. If that changes, the district could build on 17 acres on the site -- after paying close to $582,000 to mitigate the destruction of protected wetlands.

``There is often a need to demuck in Broward County,'' Coates said.

Board members could also sell the land, which a district appraisal says is worth about $4.8 million, roughly $461,000 more than what the board bought it for.

A discussion on whether to sell the parcel and others the district owns is scheduled for Dec. 8, at a time some on the board hope they can stop reliving the past.

``This presentation is about going forward, not going back in history,'' said Kevin Tynan, Gallagher's replacement on the board. ``Whether it was right or wrong, it happened.''

Miami Herald staff writers Scott Hiaasen, Hannah Sampson, Nirvi Shah and Jay Weaver contributed to this report.