From Debbie Hamme
Re ““Here Come the Environment Geeks. Hide the Plastic, Murgatroyd”
To my friend and favorite curmudgeon, the editor:
I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on the importance of recycling, saving endangered species, protecting clean water, reducing our dependence on fossils fuels.
While I don’t fit the mold you described in your op-ed the day after last week’s School Board meeting, I do consider protecting our planet to the best of our ability to be “important stuff.”
I would like to point out that the Environmental Sustainability Committee was formed at the request of the Board to investigate and determine the feasibility of installing solar panels on the roofs of three of our schools, as well as ways to reduce costs by “going green.” It is unfortunate that due to the lack of action by the Board and District personnel, the solar panel project has been repeatedly stalled. This may have been by District design, but we have missed out on so many opportunities to be considered for state funding or funding from other sources, that the sad eventuality is that the project will more than likely be scrapped altogether when its cost effectiveness wanes.
With all due respect, Ari, you need to sit closer to me at the next Board meeting. The committee suggested that a “culture of sustainability” be created, not a “cult.” It was not the Environmental Sustainability committee that decried their being left out of the planning stages of the four major capital improvement projects. It was Board member Steve Gourley, and with good reason.
These community members have given tireless hours (at no cost to the District) to develop a plan with which to bring revenue into our District at a time when, according to all reports, we are in desperate need of funds. Shouldn’t they be applauded instead of criticized for that?
With regard to the capital improvement projects, I support all of them. What struck me at the Board meeting, however, was the apparent inequity with which the funds will be applied to each project, as well as the lack of detail in each proposal. It would seem prudent to at least cost things out as line items so that priorities can be determined and projects scaled back as need be. To depend on grants or other funding sources to complete any of the proposed projects does not make logical sense. You can’t assume anything or spend the money until you have it in hand, obviously.
In looking at the proposal for the Robert Frost Auditorium, it was perplexing to hear that the District does not feel it is necessary to upgrade those bathrooms. Asst. Supt. Ali Delawalla mentioned something about asbestos removal while speaking, but incredibly, it wasn’t listed as part of the renovation.
I am under the impression that asbestos removal is extremely expensive and has to be done by experts to avoid the dispersal of asbestos into the air. How much will that add to the $2 million that has been allocated to the project?
While I am supportive of improving our athletic facilities — especially as it applies to the safety of our athletes—to spend over $8 million on this project when the campuses throughout our District can use upgrades, does not seem prudent. We’ll have a state-of-the-art athletic complex while our schools look decrepit? I’m trying to figure out the logic in that.
For example, the roofs at schools other than El Marino, the Middle School and the high school leak when it rains. We have a termite issue at El Rincon that may exist at all of our schools.
The buildings need to be tented during either summer, winter or spring break to eliminate the problem. Spraying or the use of chemicals cannot take place when school is in session. That is understandable, but every year about this time our students are exposed to swarming termites in their classrooms. Yet there’s never any money to take care of the problem.
Our schools are in need of plumbing upgrades — we frequently have mainline stoppages at my school, causing sewage to back up into student bathrooms.Bathrooms throughout the District need repairs and upgrades.
Water fountains at the high school have been broken for months or years and have never been fixed or replaced, robbing the students of much need hydration during the day — this is an issue Nancy Goldberg had been championing long before she retired.
Yet the fountains remain as is. When it’s hot in August or September when we go back to school, everyone asks the same question every year: Why don’t we have air conditioning in the classrooms to make the learning environment more tolerable for our students?
Perhaps there are more pressing issues that need to be addressed. We’d love to have a new athletic complex with all the bells and whistles, but that may not be possible right now. Let’s replace the things that need to be replaced in order to protect our students’ safety (both fields, the bleachers) and wait a bit on the rest.
If the athletic project is scaled down, that would leave desperately needed money to repair what we haven’t been able to maintain properly for years due to our shortage of funds.
At the Board meeting, Board President Scott Zeidman decried the fact that we’ve had all of this money sitting around in the Capital Improvement fund doing nothing for years, and it was time to finally start spending it. That made me wonder about a couple of things.
One, when Mr. Zeidman visits our campuses, does he notice or ever ask about the problems we are dealing with at the sites so he can better represent the needs of all of our students?
Or is he just concentrating on improvements at select schools?
And, two, since nothing has been done about this issue for the four years Mr. Zeidman has served on the Board, and that by all accounts (his own included), he is the driving force (for good or bad) behind the Board, why has nothing been done until now when he is seeking re-election?
Ms. Hamme, President of the Assn. of Classified Employees — Culver City, may be contacted at antiquer01@aol.com
