| First, I would like to thank
everyone who has taken the time to give us their views, |
| both previously and tonight. I
have read all of your letters and spoken |
| with many of you personally. I am
proud to live in a community where so many |
| people care so passionately about
our schools. |
|
| I can also understand the anger
that many people on both sides feel about the debacle |
| that has unfolded since Buildings
A, B and D were closed almost 4 years ago. |
|
| It is inexcusable
that this has taken so long! |
| The EIR process should have begun
in the fall of 1995, |
| construction should have commenced
in June of 1996, |
| and the kids should have been back
in state of the art buildings when school started this year. |
|
| Instead, we still have not even
completed the EIR process. |
|
| Tonight, the time has come
to resolve what the District is going to do about BV and I |
| believe that we owe it to
the public to give them a complete answer tonight. |
|
| I believe that this is the most
important decision that this Board will ever make. What we decide |
| tonight will affect children for a
long time. Over the next 50 years or more, |
| children, parents, teachers,
staff, and the community will either benefit or suffer from |
| the decisions that we make tonight
and as the process proceeds after tonight. |
|
| I also believe that this is a
situation where a carefully considered intermediate |
| solution will provide the best
long term outcome for our schools and our community. |
| The staff has provided a solution
that provudes what I believe to be best |
| After elected, I asked the
Superintendent about the feasibility of rehabbing the old buildings. |
| I was told that not feasible to
save ANY of the 3 buildings that were closed, |
| i.e. Blds. A, B or D -- |
| large outside pillars that would
destroy the historic look of the buildings & |
| loss of >20% of space. |
|
| The EIR was a BIG surprise for me,
because it was directly |
| contrary to what I had been told. |
|
| I now believe that rehabbing the |
| existing buildings is feasible,
based on the EIR and on my discussions |
| with the architects and engineer. |
|
| However, we are not required to
rehab the buildings merely because this is feasible. |
| Our duty as a Board is to take all
relevant factors into account in deciding what will |
| be best for the district and the
community in the long run. |
|
| There is room for reasonable
people to differ in weighing these factors. |
| All that each member of this Board
can do is try to weigh the factors as best we can, |
| on a building by building basis
and taking into account the relationships among the |
| buildings. |
|
| I am not an architect, but I have
spent hours just looking at the facades of buildings A, B and D, |
| trying to quantify what makes each
façade interesting and trying to appreciate the beauty of |
| each building, and how each
building relates to the other buildings and to the neighborhood. |
| I have also spent some time
studying the history of Romanesque Revival architecture, |
| so that I can most fully
appreciate the historical significance of each building. |
|
| My subjective impression is that
the most interesting and beautiful facades are as follows, in |
| the following order: |
| Bld. B facades facing Charleville
and Rexford (including bell tower) |
| Bld. A facade facing Elm |
| Bld. D limited façade facing Elm |
| Bld. B façade facing Elm |
| The staff's plan saves the 2 most
interesting and beautiful facades (in my subjective opinion) |
| I agree that these are all
beautiful buildings. I also believe that they are all |
| historically significant. |
| I would vote to restore and
preserve all three of these buildings IF we could substantially |
| meet the key program needs of the
school. However, for reasons that I will outline in a |
| moment, I have concluded that we
cannot meet such needs without almost completely gutting |
| such buildings at a cost exceeding
$22 million and even then, I have doubts as to whether |
| we could meet the program needs as
optimally as with $18 million or so of new construction. |
| We have four other schools in this
district and I think that it would be folly to spend this much |
| extra money on gutting the
buildings, even if I did not have serious doubts as to whether |
| we would adequately meet our
program needs after spending such extra money. |
|
| To summarize, I love and
appreciate the old buildings, but I believe that the educational |
| needs of our children must take
precedence and that gutting is not a prudent |
| alternative. |
|
| Key program issues -- class size
and configuration = #1 by far -- we need to |
| assume that whatever we do should
be functional for 50 years or more and |
| need to provide for both our
current program and future programs that we |
| cannot predict because technology
may, in the future, result in larger class size, |
| as educators rely on
ultrasophisticated computers or some other futureistic |
| strategy that this Board cannot
predict. |
|
| Also, I am not that impressed by
the state standards for classroom size -- |
| I think that we can and should
usually try to exceed any state standard by at |
| least 10% and believe that we
would be foolish and hypocritical not to seriously |
| study this issue and not leave
this decision solely to our architects. |
| After EIR adopted, need to have
serious discussion with architects and |
| educators about this. |
|
| 4b. Question -- can meet
program needs? -- must analyze on bld by bld basis |