The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees will be receiving a report from the district’s 7-11 Advisory Committee Thursday, which includes a recommendation to sell or lease nearly five acres of unused land at Donlon Elementary School.
According to the May 14 staff report, this recommendation comes after multiple public hearings and an in-depth 7-11 Advisory Committee meeting discussion on March 31.
“The Committee finds that the approximately 4.7 acres of unused field space located at Donlon Elementary School are surplus to the needs of the District,” staff stated in Thursday’s report. “As such, the Committee recommends that the District sell or lease the unused portion of Donlon Elementary School.”
The committee is made up of 10 members appointed by the board and tasked with recommending what to do with this specific land.
According to the agenda report, the committee reviewed several pieces of information before making their recommendation, including current and projected enrollment figures, current usage, enrollment and capacity of Donlon and other elementary schools, and planned residential developments.
Staff also noted in the agenda report that the unused property borders Denker Drive and Payne Road, which is the same piece of land members of the school community previously advocated to save when the field was included in Pleasanton’s sixth cycle Housing Element site inventory list. The site was eventually removed from the inventory list.
The board’s open session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (May 14). Read the full agenda here.
In other business:
* Staff will be presenting a resolution to approve a state Board of Education waiver that seeks to disregard several surplus property sale procedures related to the sale of surplus property located at the district’s former headquarters on Bernal Avenue.
The property, located at First Street and Bernal Avenue, was previously declared as “exempt surplus land” through a board-adopted resolution. However, in order to dispose of the property through a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, which is when the district solicits bids from potential vendors for certain services, PUSD needs to pursue a waiver of the competitive bidding requirements from the State Board of Education (SBE), according to staff.
“Waivers of certain of the California Education Code’s surplus property sale/lease procedures are routinely granted by the SBE,” the staff report states. “The waivers seek to eliminate those Education Code constraints on the sale/lease of property which are unflexible, limit the District’s options, and/or increase administrative costs.”
Following a public hearing, the board will take a vote on approving the resolution.
“Seeking and receiving a waiver from SBE does not bind the District to selling or leasing the properties,” the staff report states. “A waiver will help ensure that the decisions made by the Board regarding the properties can take into account the needs and desires of the community and allow the District to utilize the RFP process.”
The resolution would also authorize the district to make “statutory written offers” to government agencies for park and recreational purposes. Some examples of government entities that the district could sell or lease the property to include the city of Pleasanton, Alameda County, the governing bodies for both the University of California and the California State University, and any public housing authority in Alameda County.
* Trustees will be voting on approving a contract with Crawford and Associates for material testing and special inspection services on the Amador Valley High School Campus Renovation Project, one of the marquee Measure I bond projects that looks to construct brand-new athletic and performing arts facilities.
The agreement is structured as a “time-and-materials contract” with a not-to-exceed amount of $354,783 that includes a contingency and will be billed on actual hours worked and services performed. The money will come out of the $395 million Measure I bond fund.
* The board will also vote on approving another contract related to the Amador Valley High renovation, this time for environmental testing of the hazardous materials that will be produced as part of the project’s construction.
Staff is recommending the board approve the contract, which includes a not-to-exceed amount of $89,762 to Millennium Consulting Associates.
* Staff will be seeking board approval of a second change order to the district’s contract with Clark Sullivan Construction and JKAE Architects regarding the design build agreement for the new Educational Options Center, which is set to house Village High School and other alternative educational programs.
The change order, which is in the amount of $392,385, is meant to cover the cost of designing the basketball court and amphitheater seating for the new center. The original contract was set at just over $34.8 million dollars but with the new change order, that total contract amount — funded by Measure I — totals around $35.3 million.
The overall scope of work for the contract, apart from the court and seating, also includes construction of the new campus as well as the landscaped areas, gardens and parking lot. It also includes the installation of new food service equipment for a Child Nutrition Services warming kitchen, according to staff.
* Another agreement the board will be voting on is one with Embarcadero Capital Partners, a San Jose-based firm that PUSD is seeking representation from as it gets set to negotiate its lease extension with Gatan Ametek.
Gatan Ametek is one of the businesses leasing office space inside the same buildings where the district offices are located on West Las Positas Boulevard. Its lease with PUSD is set to expire in February 2028.
The plan to sell or lease surplus property behind Donlon now faces the same issue that existed several years ago when it was proposed to build a 4/5 school on that space. The main problem was the increase in traffic on these narrow residential streets: that issue has not been resolved. Now these neighbors face the same problem of more cars on Payne Road. At the same time, the new TK buildings at the front of the school along Dorman Road will have increased traffic as that program will
likely become a magnet destination for the youngest PUSD students, most of whom will be driven to school. Does no one on the Board, 7-11 committee, or Cabinet actually know this neighborhood?
If y’all still need to shave dollars from the budget, there are numerous ways to do it that do not negatively affect local residents.