Merits of Using Bond Funds for New School Debated

Nearly three years ago, Santa Monica voters approved a $75-million bond issue for school improvement, responding to warnings that “leaking roofs, faulty wiring and hidden asbestos threaten the safety of the children throughout the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.” The money was to be used to repair and upgrade deteriorating school buildings.

Now, plans call for nearly $7 million of that money to be spent to build a school in Los Amigos Park.

Critics of the plan complain that the bond funds were not meant for construction and question whether a new school should be built, citing declining enrollment and a more than $11-million expected shortfall for reconstruction projects.

And, they argue, spending the bond money on the new school would mean improvement projects at more than seven other local schools would have to be postponed.

Opposition is scattered but fierce, although most Santa Monicans seem unaware that school plans have taken a new direction since they passed Proposition ES, a measure that, according to the ballot pamphlet, was needed for “urgent needs like asbestos removal, earthquake safety measures, fire safety work, as well as classroom improvements and modernization . . .”

Opponents call the reallocation of funds for the new school “a bait and switch” and argue that it strains credibility and could affect future bond measures.

“In this time of financial crisis, to go ahead with construction of a new school with monies dedicated to reconstruction of districtwide facilities is more than fiscal mismanagement, it’s outright scandalous,” said John Bodin, a political consultant.

Economist and former planning commissioner Jennifer Polhemus said she thinks that voters who approved the bond issue “are not aware their money is being moved from where they thought it was going to go and into a new school, regardless of whether it is good or bad.”

“There is talk of floating another bond issue to make up for ‘the problem’ (the revenue shortfall). But unless the public feels the funds are being managed very carefully, I don’t think they are going to be willing to support another bond issue. ‘Need’ is not enough.”

Polhemus, who said she takes no position on whether the school should be built, said taxpayers already feel burned by the district’s decision to use the ES bond money to adapt the middle school in Malibu for the new high school there.

“The perception is that it was a bait-and-switch ploy then, and now people are confused and skeptical that it is happening again.”

She noted that the district’s decision to use park land for school purposes in a park-poor city is a sore point with some, while others, who have dubbed the planned facility “the yuppie school,” fear that the new school is being built to draw permit students (and thus more school funds) and resident students who have fled to private schools in recent years.

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The proposed new school is part of a project called the Ocean Park Education Plan, which focuses on four school properties in the southwest area of the city.

After the bond measure was passed in 1990, district officials considered needed renovations in rundown existing facilities. They concluded that it would be more efficient to close both John Muir Elementary School and the Santa Monica Alternative School House (SMASH) and relocate them to a new school, which would be built at Los Amigos Park. The plan called for $4.2 million of the costs to be covered by developing the John Muir site. Muir was to be demolished and the land sold or leased for development of up to 89 housing units, with proceeds funding construction of the new school, but no developer has been found. So planners had to go back to the drawing board.

The current Ocean Park Education Plan calls for:

* Construction of the 660-student campus at the south end of Los Amigos Park (one square block bounded by 5th and 6th streets, Ocean Park Boulevard and Hollister Avenue) to house Muir and SMASH, while preserving the park acreage at the north end for school and public recreation purposes.

The new school would consist of five buildings, some of them two stories, in a pod arrangement. Muir and SMASH would have separate classroom areas, but share cafeteria, auditorium and certain other facilities.

Current activities at the site would be relocated. The private Westside Children’s Center is moving to Culver City, the Girls Club could be relocated to the old SMASH site and the district’s child-care program headquarters and a maintenance office would be moved to another district site.

* Olympic High, the district’s continuation school, and certain adult education programs would be relocated to the Muir site on Ocean Park Boulevard.

* The old SMASH/Washington West site at 2802 4th St. would be used for other district, child-care and related community functions.

* Existing child-care programs--Parents and Infant Care Services Inc. and The Gowing Place--would remain at the Washington East site at 401 Ashland Ave. Since the plan was quietly approved by the school board in 1991, more than $182,000 has been spent on consultants, planners and architects, and construction is slated to begin next August on the new school, which is expected to open in the fall of 1995.

A Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Ocean Park plan has just been released for comment and will be discussed at a public hearing by the school district next month. At issue now is the dent the new school will make in the district’s budget, which finds itself nearly $11.8 million short of anticipated revenues, due to an economic climate that has severely reduced income from developer fees and “nullified the district’s efforts to find a developer” for the Muir housing development, according to Bill Bonozo, director of facility improvement projects for the district.

The environmental impact report notes that dropping the housing project “would not be consistent with the objectives of the project,” yet no developer appears interested.

Instead of postponing the new school, however, the school district has cut back on improvement projects at other schools, deferring auditoriums, gymnasiums, pool buildings, playing fields and parking lots at Roosevelt, Grant, Adams, Lincoln, Santa Monica High, and Malibu High.

But Bonozo said top-priority renovations are still being made throughout the district, including asbestos removal, plumbing, heating and lighting repairs, and handicapped accessibility.

School Superintendent Neil Schmidt was out of the county and unavailable for comment; Assistant Superintendent Arthur L. Cohen was on vacation. Assistant Superintendent Joe Quarles said the project is “out of my realm”; school board President Pam Brady could not be reached for comment.

After critics protested the change in plans, the district two months ago sought a legal opinion from its attorneys, O’Melveny & Meyers, on the propriety of using the bond funds for new construction. The firm said the district was on firm legal ground. In a letter dated June 17, the firm said “the ballot proposition which was voted on at the Nov. 6, 1990, election specifically provides that the proceeds may be used ‘for the purpose of . . . providing school facilities to improve learning conditions.’ Accordingly, the proceeds of the general obligation bonds issued by the school district may be used for the construction and/or acquisition of new school facilities.”

City Councilman Ken Genser, who considers himself a slow-growth advocate, said the decision to reallocate bond money was “a school board decision with lots of support in the (affected) neighborhoods.”

Former school board president Connie Jenkins, who sat on the board when it unanimously approved plans to build at Los Amigos Park, said she and her colleagues were convinced that “it would be more cost-effective to build a new school than to rehab the two old ones. That would have been penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

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Jenkins said that at the time, there were “extensive public hearings and limited opposition . . . and broad-based representation on the planning committee. There are four or five people still determined to block the project, but the board serves 80,000 taxpayers.”

She acknowledged that the district hopes to attract more students--and consequently dollars--with a new school. “We did a survey, and found that 40% of families in Ocean Park with elementary-age children did not send their kids to Muir. There was clear white flight: The location is perceived negatively, and while the area is less than 25% minority, the school is 70% minority.”

Jenkins said the plan also frees up Muir for future development that could prove lucrative to the district. The new Los Amigos school is “a Byzantine puzzle that makes sense,” she said. Opponents say that, good or bad, the decision should be made by the voters.

“These tactics by the school board have made the taxpayers the victim of a bait-and-switch scheme,” said Eric Siss, a founding member of the Friends of Sunset Park, The Neighborhood Coalition and People Over Politics, and president of Preserve Our Parklands.

“It is clear that the district feels free to dictate to the public how it is going to spend their money, as opposed to honoring public trust in the use of school funds and not getting involved in developer schemes.”

He said if the project survives environmental impact review, which he and others plan to challenge, a taxpayer suit to block it is likely.

School Plan

Santa Monica and Malibu voters approved a $75-million bond measure in 19909 for school reconstruction. But now the cost of all the desired improvement projects is estimated to exceed available revenue by $11 million. School district officials have responded by delaying and scaling back work at most existing schools, but they are moving ahead with a controversial plan to build a school at Los Angeles Park in the city’s Ocean Park.

Four sites are involved in the school district’s Ocean Park Education Plan. They are:

A-- Los Amigos Park, bounded by 5th Street, 6th Street, Ocean Park Boulevard and Hollister Avenue: A new school would be built here to house Muir and SMASH, preserving some park acreage at north end for school and public recreation.

B-- John Muir Elementary School, 721 Ocean Park Boulevard: The elementary school would move to the new Los Amigos Park building. The portion of the existing building closest to Ocean Park Boulevard would be renovated to house the district’s continuation high school and adult education programs. The rest of the school and playground would be demolished to make way for a condominium development.

C-- Santa Monica Alternative School House (SMASH)/Washington West, 2802 4th Street: The SMASH program would move to the new Los Amigos Park building. The existing structure would be renovated for the community uses, including child care.

D-- Washington East, 401 Ashland Avenue (across the street from SMASH): Continued use as a child-care facility.