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Sunol residents will be voting on a $6.1 million general obligations bond this November which, if passed, will help the Sunol Glen Unified School District pay for infrastructure improvements to its century-old campus.
The request comes four years after Sunolians approved Measure J, a $10.9 million school bond that funded the renovation of the school’s cafeteria, kitchen and multipurpose room, among other things.
“Many of our facilities are aging,” Shay Galletti, Sunol Glen School principal and district superintendent, told the Pleasanton Weekly. “This would address critical facility needs, and help update our campus, including the 200 wing — that’s the second oldest building on campus — and then phase three of the main building.”
Over these past four years, Sunol Glen has been using bond dollars from Measure J to fund several key renovation projects. Those projects included the modernization of the cafeteria and kitchen, and many seismic upgrades and renovations to the 100-year-old main building.
While these renovations addressed many critical facility needs, Galletti and other Sunol school officials said there is still much more work that needs to be done, especially to the school’s historic main building. This was made clear during an investigation of the facility that exposed even more structural issues that were previously unknown to the school district.
“There was really no way to know the full scope of what kind of work was going to be necessary when we proposed the first bond,” Erin Choin, Sunol school board president, told the Weekly.
That’s why, over the summer, the SGUSD Governing Board voted unanimously to place a new bond — later dubbed Measure K — on this year’s general election ballot. The decision came after the district developed a Facilities Master Plan, which investigated and outlines all of the school’s facilities and systems needs, and after the school board collected feedback from the community to gauge their support for another bond.
Apart from the 2024 Measure J, Measure K will be the third school bond Sunol considers approving. Before Measure J, the last school bond Sunolians passed was in 1999.
According to the ballot language, Measure K would fund the main building’s retrofitting and renovations; new plumbing, electrical, sewer, heating and ventilation systems; and the modernization and upgrading of aging classrooms and restrooms located in the school’s 200 wing.
Per the Alameda County Counsel’s impartial analysis of Measure K, the district’s best estimate of the average annual tax rate that Sunolians will have to pay in order to fund the bond issuance is “$33.54 per $100,000 of the assessed valuation of a taxed property”.
“The final fiscal year in which the tax is anticipated to be collected at the estimated average rate is 2058-59,” according to the impartial analysis. “The District’s best estimate of the highest tax is $35.00 per $100,000 of assessed valuation of a taxed property. The final fiscal year anticipated to collect the tax at the estimated highest rate is 2056-57.”
“The District’s best estimate of total debt service to repay the bonds (including principal and interest) is approximately $13,815,000,” the analysis further states. “The District estimates the tax would generate on average approximately $431,700 annually while bonds are outstanding.”
However, as Choin pointed out, that might not even be the final outcome for taxpayers.
She explained how Measure J had originally planned to utilize a tax rate of $52.10 per $100,000 of assessed value for property owners. But when the bond passed, a reevaluation determined that about three to four major taxpayers in the area are agencies like the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which owns and manages land in Sunol like the Sunol Valley Water Treatment Plant.
She said those massive landowners in Sunol shouldered a large portion of the tax burden, which meant that $52.10 per $100,000 number ended up going down to around $30.
“Taxpayers are currently only paying $30 on every $100,000,” Choin said. “The large businesses, the large landowners in Sunol, are actually shouldering a huge amount of that tax burden to invest in our school, on behalf of the taxpayers because that’s how the rules work.”
While Galletti said Sunol plans on applying for state matching funds to address all of the infrastructure needs identified in the school’s Facilities Master Plan, she and Choin pointed out these $6.1 million in bond dollars will be critical in repairing and modernizing an amenity that not only serves students, but the greater Sunol community.
“What Measure K is — same as Measure J — is it’s an investment in our school and our community,” Choin said. “When we invest in the infrastructure of our school, of course we get a building. Of course we get a safe place for students and teachers. But we also get a center of our community and we also get education for our future.”
Even though there is no declared formal opposition to the new bond measure, Choin acknowledged how there might be residents asking why the school district is seeking a second school bond.
However, she said she plans on having conversations with residents to inform them on how the district has been responsibly spending Measure J dollars, how much more infrastructure needs have been identified over the past few years and how it plans to spend these new dollars in a transparent manner.
And if Measure K does not pass, Choin said the results would be devastating.
“If people want to vote against it, the needs do not disappear,” Choin said. “We will be back in two years again saying ‘Now we feel in crisis because we have gone two years without the funding, we couldn’t reoccupy our main building.’ “
According to Galletti, the school district is planning on hosting a town hall on Oct. 5 where Sunolians can learn more about Measure K and ask questions.
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