Council Fails to Sway Board to Reconsider Plan for High Schools : Burbank: City officials say they should have been consulted in decision to fix up aging campuses.

Burbank City Council members made no headway Wednesday in trying to persuade the Burbank Unified School Board to reconsider its decision to renovate the city’s two run-down high schools instead of building a new one.

Mayor Michael R. Hastings and other members of the five-member council said last week that they were puzzled and disappointed that they were left out of the board’s decision, especially because the board is seeking the city’s financial help for the $64-million project.

Although council members said they would not withhold funding for the school renovations, they insisted that they should at least have been consulted about the alternatives. But President William Abbey and other board members said Wednesday night that there must have been a lack of communication if the council thought that it would be consulted.

“We feel confident that we have looked at this issue thoroughly,” Abbey told a joint meeting of the board and the council.

School board members said last week that they were startled by the council’s reaction. The board had not given any indication that the council would be consulted, Abbey said.

The board decided July 11 that rebuilding deteriorating Burbank High School on its current 16.5-acre site and funding extensive renovation of aging Burroughs High School would be more sensible than building one new state-of-the-art high school.

Both bodies agreed that alternate sites should be studied for Burbank High School, now located in a busy part of downtown.

Council members said their support, and backing from the public, will be needed on a future bond issue to fund the school projects and that city planners might have been able to find a suitable site for a single modern high school.

However, the council members said they recognized that the decision to rebuild and renovate the two schools was ultimately the school board’s.

Faced with the high costs of rebuilding and refurbishing the two aging high schools, district officials tried for years to decide whether it would be more efficient to demolish both and replace them with one modern school.

However, board members indicated last week that they opposed that option, saying a combined school, which would have an enrollment of 4,000 to 5,000 students, would be too big.

The rebuilding of Burbank High will cost an estimated $51 million, and the Burroughs renovation around $13.3 million, Pierce said.

Money for the two high school projects is expected to come from the city of Burbank’s redevelopment agency, issuance of bonds and the sale of the current district administrative office.