Proposed new Morgan Hill high school debated at trustees
meeting
Morgan Hill school district trustees are finding that getting to
the heart of the Ann Sobrato High School controversy is like
peeling an artichoke. Questions of administrators and two would-be
builders have produced tidbits of useful information but there’s
always another layer.
Proposed new Morgan Hill high school debated at trustees meeting
Morgan Hill school district trustees are finding that getting to the heart of the Ann Sobrato High School controversy is like peeling an artichoke. Questions of administrators and two would-be builders have produced tidbits of useful information but there’s always another layer.
Trustees hope to discover more details Wednesday when a subcommittee under board vice chairman George Panos reports its finding from in-depth interviews with the two bidders and a visit to the site.
Meanwhile, teachers are making no bones about what they think of the district’s handling of the $72 million in bonds approved by voters almost four years ago to build Sobrato, renovate Live Oak High School and build an elementary school.
They’re questioning the cost and even the need for the second high school in the face of declining enrollment and, particularly, the performance of Jacobs Facilities, Inc. Jacobs, built Barrett Elementary School, which opened in 2001 – a year late and over budget. Jacobs is renovating Live Oak, is the architect of record on the Sobrato project and is one of the bidders for the Sobrato construction contract.
Three teachers spoke during the public comment period at a board of trustees meeting Monday. The Sobrato matter was not on the agenda.
“You blew so much money on Barrett and lost state modernization funds because Jacobs didn’t know how to design a school that now you want to shortchange Live Oak and use $9 million of modernization funds on Sobrato,” Brooke Bailey, an English teacher at Britton Middle School, said.
Six buildings at Live Oak have not been touched, while other work there remains partially completed or perhaps abandoned, according to Glen Webb, a chemistry teacher at Live Oak.
Teachers support the return of the district to a four-year high school (Live Oak is one of four three-year high schools in the state due to lack of space), but they are concerned about its financial ability to operate two campuses, Webb said. Increased operating costs would be detrimental to remunerating teachers as well as offering quality programs, he said.
“Morgan Hill Unified School District is no longer the place teachers get a start until they move on to a better job. We now have the dubious distinction of being the place that veteran teachers leave to get a raise,” Webb said.
Additionally, Webb said, enrollment is far from the threshold that would trigger double sessions, an argument held out during the campaign to sell voters on the bond measure in June 1999. Students are leaving Morgan Hill, he said, for private institutions or schools out of state.
As they adopt goals for the current year, Webb urged trustees to restore public trust, find out why families opt for private schools, reject the eminent domain procedure in acquiring land for Sobrato High, avoid building an unneeded school and ask hard questions of administrators.
Mack Haines, a water polo coach, asked trustees to make a decision on Sobrato using the best information possible.
“We were going to have a big campus, but times have changed. No one is at fault….but we don’t know what is true and what isn’t true. We need you to ask questions,” Haynes said.
Trustees haven’t been shy in asking questions. In fact, a special question session was convened Jan. 6 because an earlier board (three new members were elected Nov. 5) deadlocked on Superintendent Carolyn McKennan’s recommendation to hire Jacobs for the Sobrato work. Also bidding on the Sobrato work is Turner Construction Co.
Until a decision is reached, Richard Knapp, co-principal at Live Oak High School, has moved to the district office to oversee preliminary work at the Sobrato site.
Shelle Thomas and Amina Khemici, both newly elected, voiced concern at the Jan. 6 meeting about the cost of Sobrato and whether the district can afford the new school. The same question surfaced during the election campaign, with critics citing the district’s declining enrollment.
Trustees covered a gamut of topics Jan. 6, with James Black, a consultant hired to review the bids of Jacobs, and San Jose-based Turner, and representatives of the two firms. Black, who opened the session, said either firm could do the job, but urged trustees to nail down a construction schedule since they want to open the new high school in fall 2004.
Black’s review found Turner and Jacobs neck and neck as far as cost is concerned. The finding would seem to resolve an earlier discrepancy – that the Jacobs bid to guide construction of the high school was $3.3 million more than the state-recommended amount and the approximate amount bid by Turner and two other firms.
At the no-decision meeting of Nov. 18, trustees were told that the $3.3 million difference stemmed an “at-risk” factor, meaning that Jacobs took the responsibility for any lawsuits.
What would happen in the eventuality the project is scrapped was raised Jan. 6, too, along with questions about architectural work, construction costs, liability and problems involving cost overruns and the clean-up of toxic agricultural residue at the Barrett Elementary school site.
There was an explanation of the differences between a construction manager, as exemplified by Turner, and a design/build firm such as Jacobs that sees a project through from conception to completion.
Some trustees find unsettling an ad in a construction trade journal last month that listed Jacobs as construction manager for the project. The explanation offered was that the advertisement was technically correct, although Jacobs so far is only the architect of record.
Thomas especially is concerned about the cost of Sobrato High, given other projects on the books, the uncertainty over how much state funding the district will receive this year and, what she says is lack of information on the cost of in-progress or finished work.
“I want the big picture. We have to know that we’re not robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Thomas said.
Sobrato is not the only district project under way, Thomas said. How much is it going to cost to clean up 30 acres at the Sobrato site where farm operations and a subterranean gasoline tank have contaminated soil, Thomas asked. What about the new corporation yard the district needs? How much as been spent so far on the renovation of Live Oak High School?
Veteran trustee Del Foster urged his colleagues to get on with business, saying there was a “learning curve problem” since the questions being asked had been answered on other occasions.
The Sobrato project has gone anything but smoothly. In October 1998, the Sobrato development family donated 124 acres to the district for a school. The city of San Jose sued because the property was part of its Coyote Valley greenbelt, but the matter was settled out of court. The agreement gave San Jose 75 acres of the property in exchange for $3.5 million with which the school district could buy other property. The district has initiated procedures to acquire the adjacent land under eminent domain, a law that allows governments to acquire – with proper remuneration — property needed for the common good.
