By John Derevlany
[Editor’s Note: This letter on Measure CC was addressed to the El Marino Language School Yahoo Group.]
Greetings,
There has been some recent discussion on this list about the school bond, Measure CC, that voters will decide about on June 3. Some of it was paraphrased from an info sheet I wrote against the proposed bond. If anyone is interested, that info sheet is now available here…
The information is all sourced. So you can verify it for yourself if you'd like. There are no fancy graphics or slick photos (funded by taxpayer money). Just facts. If you dispute the facts, I am happy to correct them. This bond is a mind-bogglingly complex issue and very few people (including myself) completely understand it.
I'll give you the topline arguments.
1. The bond is too big for a city of our size. Let's get some perspective on this. When $100 million school bonds are proposed in California, they are usually in school districts twice our size — 15 to 30 schools, and 20,000 or so students. Culver City has 8 schools and 6,700 students. It is extremely rare for a bond of this size to be proposed in a small district like ours.
2. The “Needs” Assessment is faulty. Our schools need repairs. They do not need $165 million worth of repairs. According to the California Dept. of Education, districts can build an elementary school for $10 million, a middle school for $18 million, and a high school for $39 million. In other words, we can rebuild every single school in our District for $165 million.
Don't like those numbers I just listed? Double them. We can still build almost every single school for $165 million.
The “needs” assessment is a grand lie designed to get us to approve this bond. It diminishes the credibility of our entire School Board and District.
3. We don't know what is being repaired with our money. This may not be a problem at the moment, where we have a competent School Board. (Hey, I voted for a majority of them.) But this money is being spent over 12 years. The most our Board members can serve is eight years. In other words, half the money will be spent by people we haven't even elected yet. We are being asked to write a blank check to blank names. Good luck with that.
The one thing I didn't include is how much the school bond election is costing us. According to District officials, they have already spent a “few hundred thousand” on consultants and other entities to get this bond on the ballot. (Huh????) The underwriting of this enormous bond will cost several million more. It's a very exotic loan, involving interest-only payments and other financial shenanigans. I have nothing against shenanigans, but this will dramatically raise the cost of the loan's underwriting.
So we will have to spend a few million dollars on election, bond consultants and underwriting before a single light bulb or toilet gets repaired. It's hard to take the District seriously about their so-called needs when they are blowing this kind of money on the current bond proposal.
Yes, there have been lots of community meetings. Penty of people have worked very hard on this. And I am exercising my democratic right to disagree with them.
Is there a better solution? Yes. The District will be taking out this loan in four different installments of $26 million each, every three years. Let's vote on each one of those installments, instead of approving them all at once. If we like how things are going, we approve the next installment. If we see it being wasted and mismanaged, then we vote No on the next installment. That is what I mean by “meaningful” oversight — not some lame committee that will rubber- stamp everything the School Board does, like every other “oversight” committee in Culver City.
A No vote is not a vote against our schools. It is a vote for a future bond that is smaller, cheaper, more efficient — and a better deal for both the students and the taxpayers.
Feel free to email online or off if you have any questions or corrections.
Mr. Derevlany may be contacted at johnderevlany@yahoo.com.
