First in a series
[img]1705|right|Mike Reynolds||no_popup[/img]A bare month and a half before the June 3 primary election that will decide Culver City’s $106 million school bond issue, Supt. Dave LaRose and Asst. Supt./Business Mike Reynolds sat down to explain to the community in detail for the first time the precise dimensions and intentions of their spending plans for the next dozen years.
The cost of Measure CC has been heavily vetted for months. They wanted to talk about work plans and reasoning behind their priority list.
Although the megaphoned public opposition has been limited, undoubtedly there is a knot of skeptics hoping against the tide that the hefty bond will fail to reach the required 55 percent threshold.
The two administrators came armed with a School District-published multi-colored 28-page slick-paper booklet – “Facilities Master Plan.” Undeniably a sales tool, it glossily brims with diagrams and text, offering rich context and detail to the District’s intentions for the most expensive bond ever attempted.
“I want to talk about the Big Picture, our goals and needs as they relate to capital projects and not about the measure, per se,” Mr. LaRose said.
Context of the Needs
Before addressing a potential chronology of events if the favored bond survives the election test, wanted to revisit where the District and a 40 percent different School Board were last year about this time.
It probably is critical to note that Messrs. LaRose and Reynolds bring fresh eyes to this sometimes controversial debate. Both are finishing just their second year in the District. Mr. LaRose arrived from Washington state in August 2012, and in October, Mr. Reynolds returned from private business.
“Mike and I just have been reflecting on where we were a year ago,” said Mr. LaRose. He recalled the vastly disappointing moment on July 1 when the School Board unexpectedly voted 3-2 to at least delay the bond, somewhere foggily beyond last November’s election. Proof that this disappointed a huge carve-out of the community was the stunning ouster of popular Board member Karlo Silbiger on Election Day.
[img]1551|right|Dave LaRose||no_popup[/img]‘Mike and I’
“Mike and I talk about, we just reflect, on where we were a year ago, with Mike joining the team, initiating a needs assessment, where we were in July and where we are today,” Mr. LaRose said. “What Mike and I were able to bring, as a team, and certainly the Board at that time, had expressed an interest, was to bring that outsider lens, just walking around our campus. We were not necessarily recognizing the history, what was or was not done, just assessing the current reality.
“Where are we? How is this resource – because the bricks and mortar are our resource, and while I am all about kids, we can’t be naive and not say there isn’t an impact on the quality of what we provide, based on the placed that work is being done.”
The two supers have been a single unit, a nearly inseparable team since Mr. Reynolds’s hiring, twinning their vision for a District where there is popular agreement the facilities are in major disrepair. “Mike and I” is a frequently heard coupling on Irving Place.
(To be continued)
