How I learned to stop worrying and love the BOND
How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb, er bond!
Being Right isn’t the main thing
It is a fact Measure N has been hastily thrown together. It is a fact that it is unspecific about what projects it will do.
I do agree with almost all of the nolasdbond.org Measure N criticisms and alternative suggestions.
In particular that our District needs to move sixth grade to the under-occupied middle schools for pedagogical reasons, freeing up space at all the elementaries. Our brightest kids aren’t getting all math and science they are capable of in sixth grade; they are bored.
We have enough acres now on which to put buildings. We could put more than one school on a single site. We don’t absolutely need to buy expensive additional land. Whatever happens, some attendance boundaries will be redrawn.
But being right isn’t the main thing.
Being Sooner than later is also important
So what if the No on Bond crowd are right about the facts and that there are solutions that minimize cost and minimize attendance area changes!? There are a whole range of solutions to accommodate “enrollment growth” that are ok with me, including the expensive ones.
I would gladly pay $$$ to get this over with, the SOONER THE BETTER. I don’t really see any big advantage to waiting to get a “real plan.”
The District won’t really see a big check – maybe the first $50M – till March or June. The plan is to “sell” the bond into the bond market in 3 waves, apparently taking well over a year. I’m taking Tamara Logan on her word that it will be a lot easier to make a real plan with “a check in hand.” And the bond consultant is right: If you don’t say anything specific in the bond, you don’t give people a concrete reasons to vote no; so they vote an emotional yes. Easy peasy to get 55%.
Remain Watchful!
Watch like a Hawk
The downside to passing the sloppy bond now is that we’ll collectively have to watch the incoming board very carefully. It is a mistake to think the Citizen’s Oversight Committee or that the 30+ person Facilities Master Plan Committee will be able to avoid making fatally flawed recommendations without A LOT OF PUBLIC HARASSMENT, er INPUT. So kiss your evenings with your family and loved ones good-bye. This YES on bond path will require a lot of ongoing public comment week after week, month after month, for a couple of years. We must get these two committees’ meetings broadcast and recorded by Granicus streaming.
We need to be vigilant to prevent the resuscitation of the fatally flawed proposed “solutions”
We need to be vigilant to prevent the resuscitation of the fatally flawed proposed “solutions”: putting North of El Camino kids or the charter kids on a 5 acre site, inventing k-2 schools to increase geo-economic segregation, derailing Los Altos Civic Center planning, exercising eminent domain and litigating till kingdom come, blowing off the legal (prop 39) requirements to provide facilities for the public school charter kids, spending one dollar of bond money on “enhancing” existing campuses BEFORE accommodating enrollment growth.
The Recourse is Trustee Recall
If the bond money spending “plan” that emerges is unacceptable, we can’t recall the bond. We can’t recall the unelected Citizen’s Oversight Committee nor the Facilities Master Plan Committee who will be concocting plan recommendations. But we sure can recall the one or more members of the LASD board of trustees.
The process requires getting about 20% of registered voter to petition for a recall. The recall ballot has two components: a yes or no vote for recall and the names of replacements. The recall vote requires a simple majority to pass.
School Board Recall Efforts in California 2013 . http://ballotpedia.org/School_board_recalls
Ballotpedia on CA recall law. http://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_recall_in_California
Secretary of State on procedure. pdf
“The notice of intention does require..(b) a statement, not over two hundred words in length, of the resaons for the recall. A reason must be rovided, bu under Article II, Section 14(a) of the California Constitution, the sufficiency of the reason is not reviewable.” So you can recall for any reason.
Who done it? Large committees dilute responsibility
Lalahpolitico: VOTES YES ON MEASURE N
So today, having decided to support Measure N, I went to the ExcellentLosAltosSchools.org web site to make a grassroots donation and volunteer to display a sign at my home along Almond Ave. The suggested donations were rather breathtaking. – $10,000 down to $500 then Other_____. You know the size of my donation – massively Other!
For fun I decided to see how the donations to the YES on N political action committee were shaping up. The Form 497’s are up on the Santa Clara County web site. As of today, the total of donations over $100 are $47,500. [ In California if you make a donation greater than $99 your donation is public information.]
The only donations that surprise me are the ones from the architect and engineering firms, which presumably have the contract in the bag already.
Large Donors to YES on Measure N
Election2014_YESonNDonations spreadsheet
Lalahpolitico: I guess the YES committee is planning to spend the money on more of those pretty green and blue flyers that come in the mail. And the Town Crier charges about $1000 for one of those one page ads I think.
UPDATE Oct.2,2014: I got TWO glossy mailers from excellentlosaltosschool.org today.
