After months of deliberation, the Hermosa Beach school board decided Monday night that it is not yet ready to put a school bond measure on the ballot in November. Instead, the board will do more public outreach and decide whether to put a bond measure to voters in June or November of next year.
School board members all agreed the school district needs new and updated facilities, since View and Valley schools are overcrowded by about 500 K-8 students, many of whom are taught in temporary classrooms. But four members of the board felt more time was needed to gather community support before floating another bond.
Last November’s $54 million Measure Q bond measure, which would have reopened North School and renovated View and Valley schools, failed by just 32 votes. To put a bond measure on the ballot in November, the board would have had to decide to do so at Monday’s meeting, due to a filing deadline.
“I have spent hours and hours and hours thinking about this,” school board president Patti Ackerman said. “We need more time. We have done a tremendous amount of homework. Going forward, I think we need to do more.”
That homework will include more workshops with the public, where community members can provide feedback on school board plans. For example, a March workshop told school board members that any plan to build a parking lot for North in Valley Park would hurt a bond measure’s chances of passing.
Parking will again be a decisive issue this time around – one that some school board members said needs to discussed further with the public. The debate now is whether to build an underground parking lot at a cost of a couple million dollars to preserve more space for other uses at the school site.
“This idea of parking, underground or surface, is going to be incredibly significant,” board member Mary Campbell said. “The community needs to be brought in on that.”
There was also a lack of consensus about whether to go out for a $54 million bond, which would reopen North as a third and fourth grade school with a capacity of about 500 students and also provide aesthetic upgrades and needed maintenance to View and Valley, or a $35 million bond, which would reopen North but only address the most urgent needs at View and Valley. Post-election polling showed that some community members who voted ‘No’ on Q believed last year’s $54 million bond measure’s tax rate of $29.50 per $100,000 of assessed home valuation was too steep.
“I just don’t feel it’s the appetite of the community to support the larger number,” board member Carleen Beste said. “We would be better off selecting the smaller project and doing it right.”
The board voted unanimously against placing the $54 million bond on the November ballot, and 4-1 against placing the $35 million bond on the November ballot, with only Beste dissenting.
At one point, Beste questioned whether the board risked venturing too far into the weeds by inviting many months more of discussion on how to solve an overcrowding problem that has already been talked-about for years.
But Superintendent Pat Escalante said there is a legitimate need to engage more with the community, particularly regarding View and Valley schools.
“The conversation with North is beginning to take shape,” she said. “[But] the community conversation with View and Valley could be expanded.”
Board member Lisa Claypoole also initially favored placing a bond measure before voters in November, though she joined her colleagues in voting to postpone a measure until next year. She lamented that the needs of students — who will return for class September 2 — won’t be met for many more years.
“My fear is that the passage of a June 2016 bond measure doesn’t put a school on that [North] location until 2018-2019 or 2019-2020,” she said. “We don’t have the space for students in eight weeks. The problem is real.”
The board closed the meeting by approving a $458,000 bid from a builder to put another three temporary classrooms and one temporary bathroom at View.
