Year in Review: Manhattan, Hermosa mull school facilities bonds
Manhattan Beach Middle School.jpg: The Manhattan Beach Unified School District hopes to pass a bond that will fund additions to Manhattan Beach Middle School. Photo
and Ryan McDonald
The Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach school districts face different problems with their facilities, but both considered asking voters to pass bonds to finance expansions and upgrades in 2015.
In Manhattan Beach, the school board recently hired a prominent political consultant to test the waters for a November 2016 election.
Hermosa, in turn, used 2015 to take the pulse of the community on a bond measure. After gathering input, the board decided to put a bond measure before voters in June 2016.
Manhattan Beach
The last time the Manhattan Beach Unified School District asked voters to pass a bond was in 2008. The $68 million from Measure BB funded improvements at Mira Costa High School which were completed in March.
The work’s recent completion prompted the Manhattan Beach Unified School District to conduct an assessment of all of its campuses, according to school board President Bill Fournell.
“We realized that we needed to look at our long term plans for all our facilities,” he said.
The school board hired the DLR Group to evaluate all of the schools and to draft a master plan for the next decade. The schools all fell somewhere between a B and D+.
The plan went through several iterations as DLR incorporated feedback from the community.
Some of the most vocal input was from the Friends of Polliwog Park in response to the initial proposal to expand Manhattan Beach Middle School into Polliwog Park, which the district owns.
The group, which formed last year to oppose the construction of a skate park, was concerned about proposed upgrades including an Olympic-sized pool, a 750-seat multipurpose room, expanded central kitchens to serve all of the school district and new athletic fields. They feared that bigger facilities would draw larger crowds, increasing problems with parking, traffic and noise.
The final draft of the plan, which reduced the pool’s size, dropped the athletic fields and reduced the square footage of the multipurpose room, was approved by the school board on July 15.
Board member Christine Cronin-Hurst made clear that the board was not approving the $320 worth of proposed changes, but was accepting DLR’s work. The board has said it doesn’t expect it will be able to afford all of the changes.
“It’s really like a wish list of all the things we’d like to do,” said Fournell. “There’s no way to do all of it. We’ll see what the community’s support is for which aspects” of the plan, he said.
A consultant from DLR said that the most the school district could legally ask for through a bond was $284 million.
On December 9, the board hired political consultant Tramutola to evaluate the likelihood of voters approving a bond.
Tramutola’s proposal assumed a November 2016 election.
The Oakland-based company helped the city of Berkeley pass the nation’s first soda tax in 2014.
In its application, Tramutola also noted that it helped the Torrance Unified School District pass two bonds in the 2014 election approving $200 million worth of renovations and new building, some of which had been outlined in a longterm master plan in 2007.
“With the successful completion of the Measure BB bond project constructing a new state-of-the-art facilities at Mira Costa High School, and the development of a district-wide Facilities Master Plan, Manhattan Beach USD is well poised to implement a long-term plan that will provide all students with educational facilities that are commensurate with the educational experiences that the District provides,” Tramutola wrote in a letter with the application.
Hermosa Beach
The site of North School in Hermosa Beach. The campus, currently used as a pre-school and as an adult school, will be transformed into a campus for third and fourth graders if a June 2016 bond passes. Photo
Mention Measure Q around Hermosa Beach, and even today you’ll see a lot of wincing faces.
The 2014 bond measure went down by a mere 32 votes in November 2014.
At the same time, facilities in the Hermosa Beach City School District strained at the load of students. District officials were forced to get creative to make room for every child: portables, alternative schedules, even holding class in the teacher’s lounge.
The crowding was bad enough that the school board considered going back to the voters in 2015. But while board members saw a clear need for another bond measure, they feared that they were not yet ready to ask voters to open their wallets again.
“It wasn’t that long ago that we were licking our wounds,” said board president Patti Ackerman. “We’re going to it right, we’re going to do it this time.”
Instead, the school board held a series of community meetings throughout the year to take residents’ temperature on another bond effort.
The results came in November, when the school board unanimously approved a resolution to put a $59 million school facilities bond measure before voters in June 2016. The funds would be used to re-open North School, modernize Hermosa View and Hermosa Valley schools, and improve other district facilities.
The most common problem voters cited in meetings throughout the year was concern over the fate of Valley Park, which borders North School. The district currently leases the North School space to a pre-school and an adult school, and the largest chunk of funds coming from the bond measure would go to transforming it into a campus for third and fourth graders in the district.
But construction plans drawn up during Measure Q had indicated that, as part of the re-opening, the district was considering paving over a portion the green space to provide parking. Revised plans for the school now present two parking options, one underground and one on the surface, neither of which will impact Valley Park.
In addition to protecting Valley Park, backers hope the new bond measure will get a boost in part because it will demonstrate more careful planning. The new bond measure presents voters with a far narrower range of capital outlays.
Measure Q sought $54 million in construction funds, near the middle of a described projects range of $33.5 million to $76.4 million, said John Isom, a bond advisor for the district.
By contrast, the new measure will seek a bond of $59 million, based on an assessed needs range of $58.3 million to $67.8 million.
The board has tentatively settled on a rate of $29.50 per $100,000 of assessed property value, and will make a final decision early this year They chose that over the cheaper option of $26, because the higher rate would allow the district to collect the $59 million in five years, while the lower rate would take 14 years. The difference is significant because it would likely allow for lower construction costs.
Hermosa Beach has significantly lower school bond assessment rates than its neighbors, in part because it has no dedicated high school. The current rate, based on bond measure passed in 2002, is $17.97 per $100,000. It is significantly lower than what other districts in the area pay. Manhattan Beach pays $70.5 per $100,000 of assessed value, while Redondo pays $92.42.
Backers plan to make the disparity the crux of their message.
“We need to get the message out,” said board member Mary Campbell. “Unless people internalize this stuff, [the measure] may just look like an increase, when really it’s not even necessarily enough to cover it all.”