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Uploaded: Friday, August 15, 2008, 12:17 PM
Updated: Saturday, August 16, 2008, 10:24 AM
District 'not there yet' in decision to appeal Neal Elementary case
Extension granted for PUSD to respond to judge's final decision
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by Emily West
Pleasanton Weekly Staff
| No action was taken at the Pleasanton Unified School District's closed meeting Thursday over the recent litigation over the building of Neal School. At this time, the district says it has not yet decided to appeal.
Myla Grasso, public information officer for the district, said after talking with their lawyers, there is still more of the process to go through before appealing the ruling.
An Alameda County Superior Court judged ruled in favor of Signature Properties, the developer that the district believed was responsible for building what would have been Pleasanton's 10th elementary school in the Vineyard Corridor.
Prior to the judge's final ruling, the district sent a response to his tentative ruling, disagreeing with several of the judge's findings. Making few changes, the judge made his final ruling and an extension to Sept. 5 was granted to the district for filing a response.
Grasso said the extension was needed to accommodate scheduling.
The November elections could bring two or three new board members, who would then also be involved in making decisions on the litigation if it is still pending.
At this time, another meeting on the litigation has not been scheduled, although the school board will hold a regular public meeting starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Are you receiving Express, our free daily e-mail edition? See a sample and sign-up for Express.
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Posted by Cesar, a resident of the Vineyard Hills neighborhood, on Aug 16, 2008 at 9:04 am We lost
They on
It's over
The fat lady sung
Game over
Game, set, match
The Giants win the penant! The Giants win the Penant!
These phrases are hints that conflict or game has reached a conclusion.
Would the school board please review them in case they are having trouble comprehending what happened?
The board has spent 3 million dollars in legal fees. They will also have to pay Signitureat least 3 million dollars to to reimburse them for their legal fees.Two diffierent judges have ruled in favor of of Signiture properties. Yet the board is considering another appeal.
Enough already! Stop wasting our money!
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Posted by Darby, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Aug 22, 2008 at 9:22 pm This situation has been handled so poorly by the District. It all boils down to being able to read contracts. How can we all not be outraged by the waste of millions of our dollars? That money could have gone so far in our kids' schools. There certainly has been poor legal advice given to the district...either that or we have some very stubborn people running our school district who think they are somehow above the laws governing contracts. This should never have happened and we should all be very unhappy about it (and perhaps find some different people to run the district).
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Posted by Taxpayer, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Aug 23, 2008 at 10:54 am
The superintendent defends the attorney, Harold Freiman, that represented PUSD in the contract. PUSD has continued to use him and their law firm, against parents, paying them more. No one has lost their job over this disaster. I would like a public accountability and a commitment that the attorneys will never do business in PUSD again.
Time to end the good old boys club.
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Posted by Darby, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Aug 23, 2008 at 4:01 pm $6 Million Dollars down the drain. For what - nothing. No school and 6 million in losses. The only ones who have not been wrung dry are the attorneys for all parties. If the people running the district were not so stubborn and entrenched in their position (which held no water legally) we would still have at least the 6 million. And no one seems upset.
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Posted by An Amazed Perent, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Aug 24, 2008 at 3:29 pm The August 22nd Pleasanton Weekly quotes Supt. Casey as saying that the district will receive "about $500,000 less from the State this year" and "we will have about $1.5 million in new costs. So we're down...$2 million."
Excuse me?
And we've just lost $3 million plus another anticipated $3 million in attorney's fees for the lawsuit that never should have happened?
So Supt. Casey warns us that the district will cut back on "staff development, custodial maintenance and technology matching." And he "asks the community to 'a little different expectation' in terms of how clean the facilities may be and timliness in areas like technology."
So when our kids' schools start looking bad and their computers are old and broken....we can look back at the decisions the School Board and the Superintendent made to pursue this lawsuit. Time for new decision makers, I'd say.
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