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Uploaded: Tuesday, January 29, 2013, 7:11 AM
Pleasanton schools' Facilities Master Plan up for approval tonight
Total cost of recommended improvments more than $500 million
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by Glenn Wohltmann
Pleasanton Weekly Staff
The Pleasanton school board is expected to approve the final draft of its facilities master plan tonight, including nearly a half-billion dollars in suggested improvements.
Among those improvements is a new elementary school estimated to cost $37 million, not including the cost of land and improvements, according to the final draft.
That, or an expansion of two schools at about the same price, will be needed to handle an influx of students by 2016 as a result of transit-oriented housing projects in the area around the Hacienda Business Park.
While the board will consider how to fund the projects at some point in the future, the facilities plan offers the option of doing the most needed and most cost effective first. That would cost $92 million if all the improvements were done as recommended.
A second level, medium cost, short range priorities includes new classrooms at the district's four oldest elementary schools and the new elementary school. That would cost an estimated $210 million.
A third level of high-cost and long range projects would cost more than $188 million and would include classrooms, landscape and field improvements.
The board will also discuss the latest information about Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget. It includes, among other things, an extra $19 daily per student, about $276,000 in extra money for the 2013-14 school year.
It would also allocate $1.8 billion to eliminate short-term borrowing by districts, increase cost of living payments and shift adult education to community colleges.
Also on the agenda is a discussion of the initial bargaining proposals to be included in upcoming negotiations between the district and its teachers' union, the Association of Pleasanton Teachers.Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by Kathleen Ruegsegger, a resident of the Vintage Hills Elementary School neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 9:29 am
Kathleen Ruegsegger is a member (registered user) of PleasantonWeekly.com I just scanned the presentation attachment to this item. Things that jump out are "sale of surplus property" and "Total Funding Available When Existing Debt is Considered: 2010 COPs, Portable Leases, SYCAMORE FUND." (my emphasis) Web Link Toward the end of the presentation: "The engagement of a commercial realtor and an appraisal of the Neal property would benefit the discussion."
The standard scare buzzwords are included: "Two story construction may be needed to increase open space." " . . . the Board may consider attendance boundary adjustments
or enrollment sizes between schools will increase." "Another option to reduce the enrollment at the elementary schools is to convert an existing middle school to a K-8 campus."
The narrative and all attachments can be found here: Web Link
I hope the word will get out quickly about this plan.
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Posted by Howard, a resident of the Birdland neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 9:33 am Kathleen, this is standard shady practice by the shady PUSD. They say they are going to build a school, then they hold on the property, then they put it up for sale to housing developers.
The Neal Property is zoned for a public elementary school. Any attempt to rezone it will be referended. There is no way it will be sold.
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Posted by Kathleen Ruegsegger, a resident of the Vintage Hills Elementary School neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 9:40 am
Kathleen Ruegsegger is a member (registered user) of PleasantonWeekly.com It is counterintuitive to sell the property to add housing of some nature (will it be exempt from higher density?) that will add children to the district. What PUSD likely does not want to face is building Neal and having to redraw boundaries. It does make sense to proceed with the school, grandfather families who wish to stay at current schools, and gradually shift the boundaries. Or make all schools open enrollment. Or create magnet schools.
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Posted by Howard, a resident of the Birdland neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 10:08 am You would think that PUSD would wait to do a Facilities Master Plan after it finds out what District property the Feds decide to seize to see what inventory of property the PUSD has left. Maybe the Feds will seize the Neal Property.
At least in this case in Orange County for the sham California Union University as described in Web Link, the Feds continued to seize property related to the visa fraud after the criminal trial.
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Posted by Jill, a resident of the Birdland neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 11:27 am Watch your pockets everybody! The district will pass this plan without you thinking much about it and then they will ask the residents to pass hundreds of millions of dollars in new bonds (which we currently are paying for the previous bonds that the district refinanced to illegally siphoned more money from the residents).
I wish the papers would do some good articles on this BEFORE the district votes on this. The public does not have a clue of what the district is up to right now.
The district is way out of control. Seems to be futile to try and talk with them to change direction as their minds are made up (from my experience with them). Seems like the only possibility is to change the board majority so that we can take the district back from the administration. We have two years till the election to change the board majority, unless there is a recall...
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Posted by Kathleen Ruegsegger, a resident of the Vintage Hills Elementary School neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 4:33 pm
Kathleen Ruegsegger is a member (registered user) of PleasantonWeekly.com Speaking of watch--you cannot get the board meeting online after the fact (no longer on demand). One can record or look for repeats on TV30, or a DVD is available at each school and at the district office. There is no plan to change this back in the near term.
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Posted by Bernie, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 4:36 pm Oh-oh. Creeping socialism, everybody.
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Posted by Kathleen Ruegsegger, a resident of the Vintage Hills Elementary School neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 4:47 pm
Kathleen Ruegsegger is a member (registered user) of PleasantonWeekly.com Well, inconvenient at a minimum. Failure at transparency and a backward step in services previously provided. Used to be you could watch when you wished and go back to previous meetings for historical discussion on a topic; now you have to record, and perhaps keep, (not awful, to be sure) or show up at a school and sign out the DVD.
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Posted by local, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Jan 29, 2013 at 8:05 pm Obvious that the district does not want the involvement of the community. They do all their decisions in the back room now with their new policy that 'requires' the board members to write down their questions and ask the staff before the meeting. That was put there, thanks to the board majority who are puppets for the administration.
I did attend one of the sessions on the facility planning and was made to feel unwelcome by the administration. They felt the public was wasting their time by asking questions. Most likely because the administration was going to do what they wanted and did not want any input from the community. The administration feels it is their district. Don't you dare question them on anything. I used to be very involved in our school district, and the current administration is 180 degrees different in working with the community. Two board members are trying but the other three should be removed as soon as possible. Then maybe we can fix-up the problems at the administration level.
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