First in a series.
When Dave LaRose, superintendent of the School District, is in the room, you affix roller skates to both ears and listen fast.
In Bond Measure Land across Culver City, the volume is turned to Hushed. What was supposed to have been a busy, noisy summer of project work was so quiet you could have heard a pinhead explode – because of an esoteric, not to mention obscure, court decision four months ago in Fresno.
Earlier this week, under the byline of Mike Reynolds, assistant superintendent for business, the District produced a wing-spread of a document that sought to explain why hammers and nails have assumed a parade-rest position at a time when parents expected to see overt evidence of progress.
How many projects from last year’s $107 million school improvements bond measure are well underway?
“Virtually none,” Mr. LaRose said, “for bureaucratic and procedural reasons.”
The last 16 months have been an eye-opener for a man accustomed to slightly more efficient, slightly less exasperating, procedures.
“As I said a few weeks ago, my education has been the whole process, from project identification to construction, which has 23 different steps,” Mr. LaRose said.
Is the community losing patience?
He hopes not.
“The community has been more than patient,” the superintendent said. “It is our obligation to… This is a community that cares deeply. They want to be informed. They should be informed.
“Some questions are out there now. We just pushed out a message to kind of summarize what has been happening, what the implications were, reasons for delays, how the court decision in Fresno impacted us, our process for identifying the rest of the team.
“So much of the work we want to have accomplished requires project specs, which requires architects. Therefore we have to bring in architects. But even to do that, you have to go through a procurement process to even get the architects.”
Time was called until the heads stopped spinning.
(To be continued)
