Re “If I Lived in LAUSD Territory, Says Chabola, I Would…”
[img]1372|left|Mr. Jerry Chabola||no_popup[/img]In this concluding installment, Jerry Chabola, who retired last year as a teacher and the Athletic Director at Culver City High School, resumes talking about his thoughts on seeing that his hard work on renovation of Helms Field finally is coming to pass.
The Front Page – How soon after the completion of Phase One do you expect Phase Two to begin?
Mr. Chabola – Yesterday! The longer you put things off into the future, the more they are going to cost. If something costs a million dollars now, will it cost three or five million five or ten years from now. Ten years ago, the project would have cost half of what it does now.
The Front Page – The previous School Board is credited with starting these projects rolling.
I praise them for doing that. When some Board members were running for office, they asked for my endorsement. My first question was whether they would support a new synthetic field at the high school?
The Front Page – Is there enough support on the current Board to complete the stadium project?
Mr. Chabola – They are in difficult situation. Monies are going to be tighter. If the funds are available, I don’t see why they shouldn’t. That’s a tough question to answer. The previous five members of the Board had significant support for doing all of the capital projects. In this financial situation, though, there’s probably no current member who would make it a high priority.
The Front Page – Are you disappointed the original stadium complex idea was downsized?
Mr. Chabola – Absolutely!
The Front Page – Do you think the reason for the downsizing was because there seemed to be a “them vs. us” atmosphere in the District that split the community into supporting either the solar project or the athletic field project?
Mr. Chabola – I can’t speak for other people, but I have never spoken against any of the projects, other than supporting the athletic field project for other reasons. That was the one that I was so involved in for many years. I would still be involved because I have six grandkids who will eventually use those facilities. Given the fact that the District probably will not be getting the state funding, there will be no money to allocate to it at this time. There here may not be the money to finish the projects, as first presented to the public.
The Front Page – Is there anyone on the School Board totally sold on the idea of a stadium project, who could see it through to completion?
Mr. Chabola – There are Board members who have bought in to getting the athletic field project done. You can’t say we have to do this or that at the exclusion of some other project. They have a lot of decisions to make. It is unfortunate that these decisions were not made two or three years ago for various reasons. The torchbearers came and went and are in different places than they were then. I think the entire stadium project should be completed, the sooner the better, because it will continue to get more expensive. If our economy does get better, it will get worse. In a down economy, you have contractors willing to negotiate a price that is beneficial to the buyer and not the seller. The better the economy gets, the cost of these types of projects will increase.
The Front Page – After these projects are completed, is there anything else you would like to see done?
Mr. Chabola – Ultimately, there should be a Board decision made to deal with the Natatorium, as a swimming pool. We had that a number of years ago.
The Front Page – Personally, it’s not very good for photography.
Mr. Chabola – The thing is they had the Natatorium ready to go. The District had $3.2 million. Of that, the District set aside $2 million. They said that would be enough to remodel the facility. They even went out and got architects to offer renditions of what it would look like. They hired a pool consultant to estimate how much it would cost annually to maintain the pool. Everybody came together, and the architect said this would be a $1.4 to $1.5 million project, but to be on the safe side he estimated it at $1.7 million. The maintenance consultant came in with an annual cost of $330,000. The Superintendent, at the time, said that for the District to go ahead with the project, the District would need to have three years worth of maintenance. That would have been about a million dollars. And that million dollars was never found. That kept the Natatorium from being renovated. At the time, I thought the city should have cooperated with the District and helped renovated the Natatorium and not the Plunge.
The Front Page – Do you think the relationship between the city and the School District should be better? The way their relationship is going now, is it actually to the determent of our kids?
Mr. Chabola – We’ve talked about this many times. They are our kids, whether they’re in school or out in the community. Many members of both bodies have wanted to work more closely together. That needs to be fostered. In the past, there were joint meetings at City Hall where all 10 members met with all their administrative assistants ready to answer questions. If we are going to do joint use agreements where schools become parks in the afternoon, why don’t we fix them up together. Why don’t we pass a bond as a city and fix everything. For example, what if we could synthetic turf all the elementary schools and they looked beautiful. Then everybody could use them. You go to Lin Howe, that field is beat up. You go to El Marino, that field is also beat up. The problem is… we all know it. We’re a small city and we’re landlocked. There is no more land.
Whether our kids are in school, a city program or a youth program, how do we develop good programs without good facilities? The only way is for us to work together.
What about the 19- to 25-year-olds? They want place where they can go and play basketball, soccer or softball. We need to have places for them too. The only way I can see this happening is for the city and the District, all of us, as a community, working together to make sure that it happens.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
