Portola Valley school board to explore $49.5 million bond measure implementation

No, no, no!

Declining enrollment. Increasing gross revenue as older homeowners move out and sell at higher valuations. The last bond measure still not paid off and now considered poorly spent/constructed. This bond measure raises $86,000 per current student or if amortized over 15 years $5750 per student per year on top of a generous tax payment from our existing property taxes. I can find no reason to vote yes.

Measure Z is sorely needed. Our schools don’t meet today’s standards. Some updates have been made over the years, but they were never intended to fully update every building. This is overwhelmingly supported by the Almanac, the Portola Valley PTO, the Portola Valley Schools Foundation, business leaders, seniors and our community.

Not sure why we need to vote if the Almanac, PTO, school foundation, business leaders and seniors all agree we need Measure Z. They should pay for it not the taxpayers.

Sarah, speak for yourself. I am both a Senior and a Community member. The business leaders I know do NOT support this, because they are also taxpayers in this community, and they, as business people, don't want to pay for something that has yet to be defined. Of course the PTO and the school foundation support this---that's not a convincing argument.

Since nobody will answer any questions about why so much money is needed (they won't give us numbers on how it would be allocated, and they won't tell us anything about how they plan to choose a contractor), it's very scary to consider that this could be passed, and we have no idea how the money will be spent. That is a LOT of money! Why can't there be some middle ground between the ideal of building the most high-end, walls of glass and retractable doors with gold plated doorknobs, and living with black mold? How do they plan to interview contractors? I don't think they do. I think they have one contractor in mind.

It's very easy to come up with enormous numbers when it's not your own money you're spending.

Measure Z is actually supported by many throughout Portola Valley and Woodside - including local business owners who live here in our community, longtime residents without kids in schools, realtors who understand the value of an outstanding school district, and parents. If we want to continue to have high quality schools in our community, for the kids and to keep our property values up, we need to pass Measure Z!

This morning (10/23) I received an email, "Community Connect: PVSD Fall 2018 Update. In discussing the facilities the Superintendent said this:

"Later in this newsletter you will see an update on this effort, including the formation of a citizens' committee to pass Measure Z, which would finance much-needed improvements to our two school sites. If the bond measure passes, we will ramp up our work to take us beyond just studying and planning and into the realm of hiring, designing, and building. "
In other words, there has not been a lot of due diligence of scoping out costs. This is a big ask for $$ with a “trust us, we’ll figure it out later”. When you add up the total cost of this adventure it is just under $100M in debt for a district with fewer then 450 students, a declining enrollment and a previous bond measure to still pay off.

The stunningly beautiful Woodside H.S. Science building which opened last year cost $18M to build. The district’s numbers are half baked and out of line.
Until the board shows the district a reasonable plan with costs and all the details my answer is NO, NO, NO on Z.

In the 28 years I've lived in Portola Valley, I've never seen the kind of marketing that I've been seeing for the last 6 months for Measure Z. Every week there's a new mailer. Also I've been getting so many phone calls. There was also at least one flier from one realtor (not multiple) and it seemed very strange to me that her flier was so pushy.

The signs that have been put up (including one on my lawn that I did not authorize) don't represent what many people I know have been talking about at barbecues all summer. None of us feel good about this---we feel worried. Who is going to pay for this? It will take years and years. 100 million dollars! Doesn't anyone understand how much money that is? It feels to me like there should be an independent auditor involved in this process, if it does pass. Are we really going to allow 8 people or so to control that much money?