The bond is coming
By knoceda
Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 7:07 pm in General, Hayward, Politics, Schools.
Just a reminder, folks, that Hayward Unified’s school bond will be on the June 3 ballot. Will you vote for Measure I? Tell us why or why not.
[You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.]
May 17th, 2008 at 1:20 am
May 16th, 2008
Of the 18 groups (usually referred to as ‘task forces’ or ‘ad hoc’ groups, etc.) within which I donated much time to either the City of Hayward or the other user of the name Hayward, our famous HUSD. I was and continue to be proud of my personal involvment in the HUSD ‘Strtegic Change Committee’ whose recoomendation for a bond issue was formally adopted by trustees in 1994.
Now, I have voted by absentee ballot to reject the current proposal due to it’s poorly adopted concepts.
First, the sample ballot ballot argument favoring passage fails to reveal that the current vote is just for the first of four such votes which are at four year intervals with a total current need of $820 million dollars. That number assumes no needed increases due to inflationatry factors, nor does it recognize a problem presently developing at the Alameda County REAL PROPERTY TAX ASSESSOR’S OFFICE.
The assessor plans to reduce the tax roll due to decline in Real Estate values. How does that affect the projected amounts of the debt service to bonds issued here in Hayward?
More importantly,the first plan of action involving needed improvements to Hayward Schools, totally ignores the much publicized danger of the predicted earthquake along the Hayward/Calaveras fault line. Prpfessionals have sounded the alarm and HUSD ignores the danger when it fails to plan espeditious removal of students from the Treeview School, which sits directly upon the fault line.
I have publicly criticized the Trustees lack of concern and their willingness to gamble on the idea that geologists are wrong, their prediction of a 75% chance of magnitude 7.0 (+) occuring within 30 years could not happen during their tenure on the School Board.? What crystal ball process of decisionm making are they using?
Let us suppose that our trustees lose the gamble and only one child is harmed by the predicted earthquake.
Can anyone guess the damage to the image of ‘Hayward’ because one of the users of that name willingly gambled?
All they had to do was move the entire enrollment to present day Bidwell which is operated as an adjunct to Treeview. Just load the campus with portables until another solution is found.
The problem at Treeview is not something new! While serving on a committee to decide, at that time, to close or retain Peixoto School, the committee was aked to examine Treeview which was undergoing additional repairs caused by fault line slippage. Earier repairs had been damaged again.
There is an additional problem attendent to the current bond issue vote. That preoblem has to do with the simultaneous reconstruction of Fairview and the addition of an annex at East A ve. school both of which are in the unincorporated hill area, between
Hayward and Castro Valley.
If you are unaware, The stonebrae school did not ‘fill up’ in the years preceding the current fiscal year 2007 – 2008. at Conclusion of that year, before the re-construction schedule was decided, the enrollment at Stonebrae was well below 600 students.
Enrollment at Fairview, some of whose students were transferred to Stonbrae, was reputed to be 570 students. All this dumping of money in one area is unfavorable to school enrollments at, as an example, Cherryland where enrollment was at 800 at conclusion of year 2006- 2007. Longwood had and continues to have something near 800 students. However, Cherryland and Longwood must wait until passage of the third bond vote in the case of Cherryland while Longwood will only be ‘modernized’ when the 4th bond ballot is passed in year 2020.
What annoys me most is the fact that in Fairview, East Ave and Stonebrae service areas are favaored to the extent that they have no incentive to vote for passage of succedding ballot measures…… especially when Stonebrae, because of it’s large dollar amounts invested in high “quality homes” has a typically low birth rate when compparing it with poorer areas of “Hayward”
In short the geniuses at HUSD administration failed to recognize that dividing the money in such manner as to priovide “a taste” to all areas of the School district on each vote has a major advantahe leadinto success of the needed fourth vote.
The way out of the delema is to deafeat the present June 3rd form of the Bond measure and place another on the ballot in November 2008 at which time there will be greater acceptance….. assuming of Course that Treeview is on top of the list.
If you are wondering, I live near the airport and the Longwood school! My children attended parochial schools, but until this particular vote I have never voted against education bonds at any level. Since qualifying for the vote privaledge at age 21, I missed only on ‘off year’ vote which was excusable only for the fact that the US Army Post Office failed delivery of my absentee ballot to the tank battalion in which I was assigned.
May 18th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I would love to vote on measure I but it is not on my green party absentee ballot. What gives?
May 18th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Sunday May 18, 2008
Well Nick, It does appear on the sample balloyt for Gren Party voters,,, it is MEASURE I…. AS IN ‘EYE’..0R IS IT MEASUER 1 AS IN ‘ONE’ ?
FAILING IT’S APPEARANCE ON RE-READ…. YELL LIKE HELL AT cOUNTY OFFICES IN OAKLAND AT 12TH AND OAKM STREETS.
IT ARE UNDERGROUND BETWEEN THE TWO BUILDINGS AND MUST NBE REACHED BY THE ELEVATOR… TRY PHONE # (510) 267-8683.
May 20th, 2008 at 2:00 am
I am voting no and so is my husband. We have questions about how much the assessment would be will the decline in value and abandonment of properties. In addition, Hayward just replaced two schools or is about to, and folks are not beating a path to those doors. I think this should be held off until we see what the enrollments are going to be next year also. I think they will be down, as I see alot of empty or for sale homes. I would be more inclined to vote for a lesser bond to simply repair our current schools and maybe put some lights in at the high school fields.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Ms. Qodrn,
Thanks for your interest, however there is a great need to replace some of the schools and modernize others. I had no particular objection to doing what is planned for Fairview school and the nearby East Ave school.
Fairviw has one of the poorest site development plans that I have ever seen. The parking limitations are the worst in the district. The buildings are old and are becoming more expensive to maintain as each year is added to their limits of duration.
My objection is based on the idea that we either attend to Fairview or East Ave but not both simulataneously, in adjacent segments of unincorporated area where we see the new Stonebrae school, to which many Fairview Students were transferred. …. that is unfair to other areas which suffer many of the same conditions.
What annoys me most intensively is the complete evasion of doing anything about earthquake threatened Treeview School which sits directly over the fault line predicted to be the site of the biggest earthquake event in North California within 30 years.
As a memeber of one committee at HUSD we ere invited to look at Treeview and on the occasion of the committee visit saw that the school straddled the failt ine had experienced recent damage dto sewer kline as result of fault line creep, and sidewalk parking area damage as result of slow slide downhill direction even to the extent that previous repairs had been damaged.
The assesment is against your current amount shown on your tax buil as the assessed value. In my case the assessment would be only $25.00 per year for each of 25 years associated with each of the scheduled votes to be taken in year 2008, 2012, 2016, & 2020. Get your costs from the assessor and apply $60. per year for each $100,000 of value or fraction thereof. It is a simple calculation! It is not a truly fair calculation since I reside in a home with nearly 1600 sq. feet with 3 bedrooms and two baths and which the assessor shows value as being just $44,000. I did not vote for prop 13, even though I have owned this home since early 1960′s and had interests in three rentals at the time prop 13 was passed. Prop 13 was and is bad law which is at the base of our present financial predicament, but I’ll be darned if I am going to bang on the counter top and demand my right to pay more until 51% of the popular vote says otherwise to sponsors and protectors of Prop. 13.
The problem is that unless there is equal distribution of the funding across the district that the present area most favored, has no real compulsion for voting on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th vote. If we attend to Treeview first and speard the remainder out, as fairly as human minds can determine ‘fairness’, then we have better chance of succeeding with all four votes.
My opposition to present plan is a matter of conscience based on the lack of fairness and ignorant attitude toward the children in harm’s way at Treeview.
DEFEAT THE DAMN THING AND DO IT RIGHT IN NOVEMEBER 2008 !
By the way. Stonebrae was built at behest of developer and did not cost local taxpayers any money except for some interior furnihings. HARD got an adjacent park to ‘boot’.
New Burbank School came about as result of cannery area redevelopment and was pushed into creation by the City under leadership of City Manager Armas and City Council, HUSD is expected to make some contributions after the opening but the entire amount due from HUSD is spread out over years and has nothing to do with the Bond vote. Note that here too, Hard got a better park adjacent to Burbank school and is highly visible to passenger trains which make the stop at this location. It gives good, favorable impression for this City.
Thanks for your interest. If the bond fails, vote for it in Novemeber, assuming the school district is smart enough to read the tea leaves after the June 3rd vote.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Any E-mails I receive regarding voters discussing whether or not they will support the school bond I will post up.
Here’s an e-mail I received yesterday from a resident who only wanted to be identified as “Dave C.”
He lists his reasons why he will not vote for the school bond:
1) This is another example of money that’s going to be wasted like many government projects and initiatives. I don’t trust the school system and government going to really spend that money properly. Its like this in every city, not just Hayward.
2) I am already paying so much taxes (wage and property tax). I am not going to fund any bond that’s going to increase my taxes, potentially for me, this will add about 360 to $400 to my tax bill yearly. If I have to do whatever it takes to run my household properly without going into major debt, the school system should do the same instead of trying to borrow their way out to finance it. They should operate like the private sector and trim the fat they have.
3) I sent my kids to private school and I am still paying my taxes for the school system and I don’t get anything in return and they still want me to pay more.
4) I already have to pay additional $150 to $200 for gas and our food bill is going up. Now they are trying to ask me to cough up $400 more dollars year after year. No way.
Thanks for listening.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Kris,
I hope you provided “Dave C” an instruction on how to access these posts on subject of Bond issue. I empathize with Dave. My wife and I are both second generation products of Parochial schools which were taxed on their assessed valuations, here in California until late 1950′s or early 1960′ based on an archaic understanding of separation of church and state. Liberal California was the last State in the union to abandon that idea.
My oldest daughter has five children who were all educated at DeLasalle or the young ladies school across the street ( Carondelet) to pay that tution both she and her husband work full time, she in nursing and he as one of the few pattern makers remiaining in the iron foundaries of California. They make good money but spend it on their children’s education. One graduates from college next Saturday while two younger sisters attend Cal-Poly in San Luis Obispo. Because mom and dad work extended hours on un-popular shifts while trading off on meal preparation, transportation etc…… their income dis-qualifies the youngsters from much participation in scholarships etc.
The double whammy…. tution at parochial schools ain’t tax deductible..
The real reward, comes later…. frankly, my wife and I are married 55 years on our anniversary in September. We look back on the fact that involvement in many personal sacrifices for the children, not the least of which was the donatioon of tome towards fund raiser activity, well beyond the expense of tuition, was probsbly the time which we were most satisfied with our lives.
Examine what I have written in preceeding contributions to this topic…… I am not opposed to the bond conceopt, just the order of the projects undertaken and the total refusal to look hard at the risks involving the Treeview school sitting on the fault line. HUSD is riskinhg the reputation of the City as well as the School District by simple use of the name Hayward.
I oppose the June 3 ballot concept for the reasons cited above. If it is defeated I would loudly proclaim my support for a better version of the work / time line based on providing a TASTE to as wide an area as possible so that all enjoy a share. Especially if the Treeview question is properly considered.
As to your personal problem with the money all I can suggest, given the low levels of income experieced by many of our Hayward residentsis that I look forward to the possibility of Cristo Rey Schools opening here in the SF Bay area. Go to Google and search : “Cristo Rey Schools, Chicago Illinois”. Their success has been rapid and immmense. Fesability study is underway and it involves the City of San Francisco. Perhaps East Bay will be next.
Then read New Testament, Matthew, Chaper 25 from 31st verse to end of Chapter.
Re-examine the issue in Novemebr 2008 !! Above all vote in the manner dictated by a well informed conscience.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I guess all these comments are really a forum for J.W. Kyle to sound off about his opposition to Measure I.
But back to Measure I – Strobridge is last on the list for any renovations … and it’s located in Castro Valley . I’m still voting for it – I think Hayward needs a bit more support for the schools – as opposed to people just jumping ship to transfer out.
As for higher taxes … it’s always inevitable. If we don’t start paying attention to our schools – no biggie – we will pay for it in the Prison System!