How can the State approve this when the Hillview School Campus acerage is insuffiencent for the proposed student population. I guess since they make the rules they can break them also.

Ranella [... portion deleted] care little for the neighbors and the environment. It's their edifice complex suppressing their obvious lack of enrollment management skills with available campuses that would decentralize the traffic, environmental impact on immediate neighborhoods. What do your expect from a self selecting myopic board? Legacy of Ives and Thygessen, now Maria H. and J. Box. They do their best to intimidate the MP City council and staff. Boyle is their inside man to deflect any criticism about neighborhood impact. [Portion deleted.]

Life in our little town of Menlo Park never ceases to amaze me. "goons"? "self selecting myopic board?"(they were chosen in a public ELECTION) "Intimidate the MP council and staff"?(name the time and date - this never happened, or happens), "Boyle is their inside man"(inside man, for what?), "unscrupulous"? The Almanac needs to exercise it's control over these posts, and get rid of garbage like this. Some days, I feel like we're on Mars. We are talking about our children's education here, with a construction budget that is already paid for, and well thought out. Please stop the name calling, and sensationalized garbage!

Hooray for censorship. Agree with you, Mars, the Almanac should eliminate all comments that don't agree with mine!

In point of fact, there are rarely school board elections. The members of the current board handpick their successors. Other people could file -- if they were aware that it was possible to do so! With no opposition, the handpicked candidates are appointed, no election required.

Time and date? Check the email that Ken Ranella sent to all district families at 4:11 p.m. on October 1, 2008. Although he doesn't use the verb "intimidate," he essentially asks parents to join him at a council meeting to mow down the council's possible challenges to the Oak Knoll plans. He sat in the front row at that meeting and tried to engage in a glare-down with the council members.

Ranella evidently enjoys wielding his power, unlike his predecessors, who were much more focused on connecting with their constituents. He seemed like a nice guy when he first took the job but he has grown into a nasty piee of work. Under his reign, the board has become similarly arrogant. I realize that some school neighbors have been difficult, but the board is making lots of enemies with its heavyhanded tactics.

"MPCSD parent" - We know who you are, good luck with your continued protest. We are sorry that you didn't get the correct curb cut, and we really apologize for putting the drop off line in front of your home. Same ol' argument, you should have just cut and pasted your blog posting from a few months ago, to this one. We just ask that you TRY to remain objective, stop the nimby attitude and come to discuss the Hillview project with a clear mind.
BTW - Ken mentioned to the group, "should we sit up front, since we may be called upon to present...." - no "glare-down" that I witnessed. Again, lots of made up stuff. This guy has a tough job, he is very approachable, willing to listen to everyone. I truly believe the emotional baggage you are carrying with the Oak Knoll decision, is clouding your objective opinion making.

the city should require the district to pay out of Measure U bond money for up to 3 new traffic signals per the EIR traffic impact analysis, @ Elder/Santa Cruz, Olive/Santa Cruz and maybe Orange/Avy/Santa Cruz, but definitely the first two. Ever since Cal State Monterey was forced to pay the city of Marina for offsite impacts to city streets by the state supreme court, there is legal basis for the city to say to the board, "you made the choice to centralize one middle school at Hillview with 1000 kids, so pay for traffic mitigation measures".

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't live within walking distance of any district schools. I wish I did! I have met with Ken a number of times, and have seen him degenerate from being a receptive administrator to the lord of his own fiefdom. I've also seen changes in the attitudes of board members.

There are some of us -- many of us, I suspect -- who do care that the board has taken such a cavalier approach to its neighbors even though we ourselves don't have a personal stake (other than wanting our kids to have a good education). Sometimes, honorable people just want to do the right thing, you know?

I can understand if the city wanted a new sewer plant, chemical plant, coal burning generating plant, nuclear power plant, hog farm, toxic waste dump, nuclear fuel dump, etc., built, expanded or rebuilt, in the town............However, this is a SCHOOL. In addition, to being a SCHOOL, it is a Menlo Park school. Menlo Park schools are the reason why many, if not most people, move to Menlo Park. It is the reason why our homes retain their value. It is the reason why we have a population, for the most part, of excellent student citizens that do not create problems for our towns, or schools. Why do we continue to push aggressively back toward the School Board, bash them verbally, propose to the city that we FORCE the schools to pay for "traffic mitigation measures" etc.?? It does not make any sense for any person that owns a home to have these type opinions. I don't care how you do the math, for me it is a no brainer. Please help to improve the schools, and not make it difficult. I haven't even used the favorite slogan of, "It's for the children", because it's also about our wallets!

Last night's meeting was sparsely attended, and the comments were mostly constructive. It was like being in a Bizarro Menlo Park.

the board's consultants are getting push back from the city on Hillview EIR after they bullied the council on Oak Knoll to acquiesce to a Neg Dec. Now let's see what Ranella & Co. try to pull on the massive Hillview project. More emails to parents to turn out in force to pressure the City Council, threats of lawsuits against the city if they dared to dictate access restrictions to school parking lots from city streets, wasting valuable city staff time reproducing thousands of pages of documents under so-called "production of documents" requests?