Northridge Community Council 1-15-02 Update |
We are sending you this E-mail as you have requested to be notified concerning Northridge Community Council events and projects affecting it.
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Please note we have moved the meeting time to 7 Pm.
http://www.northridgecouncil.org/notices/020116ag.htm
The majority of this important meeting will be Julie Kornstein our representative on the LAUSD board to answer questions raised by the council about the proposed High School and the destruction of the elementary School.
1. Please explain why we have not received a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between LAUSD and CSUN defining the use of CSUN's educational facilities and playing fields for the high school.
2. Please explain the need for a local high school in our community if there is no need for a local elementary and intermediate school in the same community.
3. Alternate project Q Please discuss the options of building of a larger high school at the corner of Zelzah and Lassen and refurbishing the Prairie Street School with FEMA money supplied by the Federal Government after the 1994 earthquake.
4. How do you plan to mitigate the level “F” service on all four intersections bordering the university? This monstrous traffic jam is not just caused entirely by the new high school, but the high school adds to the problem without mitigation.
5. Please comment the possibility of reopening Plummer through the university as traffic mitigation.
6. Requested Documents Q Why have we not received the documents requested in our 11-7-01 letter in response to the DEIR?
For the full letter see
http://www.northridgecouncil.org/lasud/020115%20Korenstein%20questions.htm
The Proposed school is described in the EIR as
"The proposed high school will help relieve overcrowding at Monroe High School and place a new high school near the greatest student population in need."
This school is proposed as an academy high school, which will share the use of California State University Northridge (CSUN) science and language laboratories and athletic facilities (LAUSD, 2001a). The school will prepare students for a career in education. The LAUSD would obtain from CSUN the approximately 5.3-acre Zelzah Court site in exchange for the 10.3-acre site including streets Prairie Street Elementary school which will be destroyed and converted to a parking lot as current LAUSD projections do not indicate a demand for elementary seats in Northridge. see the DEIR
http://www.northridgecouncil.org/lasud/lausdcsunedit-es.htm#over
WE have improved our websites presentation of data concerning the project and have 45 items for you to get more information. See
http://www.northridgecouncil.org/lasud/index.htm
We our also sending a few items about LAUSD form the media
It should come as little surprise that there appears to be yet another conflict of interest in the Los Angeles Unified School District's handling of the Belmont Learning Center.
Belmont deal-making has long been as toxic and as noxious as the leaky oil field on which the school sits.
The latest potential scandal involves the Eastridge Cos., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate development firm that is bidding for the contract to complete Belmont. Between June and August of this summer, the firm also served as an LAUSD consultant for property acquisition and new school construction in the San Fernando Valley.
Having access to the district's facilities division, while at the same time trying to win a district facilities contract, has the makings of a potential conflict of interest. And in a district with a long history of fraud and abuse, one would think that officials would be careful to safeguard against even the appearance of any possible impropriety.
But LAUSD officials don't seem too worried. Superintendent Roy Romer approved of Eastridge's dual roles, provided that it used different employees for the two jobs (presuming employees of the same company don't speak to each other). It certainly sounds and looks fishy, but we guess that's to be expected from the LAUSD.
What does it take to teach members of the "Board of Morons," better known as the Los Angeles Unified School District board, what they should have learned from experience. They should have learned some down-to-earth basic knowledge of how to deal with money. It's something we all know -- except in the LAUSD: That money tree hasn't started to give fruit yet.
It would be much more to the financial benefit of the school district if the personnel used the furniture already owned to outfit the new building, making do with what the district has and buying only what is really needed, not robbing the money from the kids' education funds to outfit the new office building.
Money for new workstations at a dandy price of $1,000 each could sure buy a lot of new books, as could money for high-priced carpet at $20 per yard. What's wrong with carpeting at $10 or $12 a yard?
The school board had the gall at the last union negotiations to tell the teachers that they don't need a wage increase, that they need to make do on what they get as a wage and learn to cut back on how they live -- something the LAUSD board hasn't learned to do.
Benjamin R. Laufer Sherman Oaks
By Sonia Giordani Staff Writer
Los Angeles Unified officials plan to buy nearly $7 million in new office furniture and carpet for their new downtown school district headquarters although they could save half that by recycling what they already have.
The decision to buy all new materials comes as LAUSD faces a serious budget crunch because of looming cuts in state funding that have jeopardized programs to improve students performance. In addition, faculty and staff who got raises up to 15 percent last year are demanding more this year.
Officials concede that buying new cubicles and work stations will cost nearly twice as much as simply moving furniture from the LAUSD headquarters at 450 N. Grand Ave. But they said the new furniture will last longer and better utilize space at 333 S. Beaudry Ave., where a 28-story high-rise is being revamped into district headquarters.
Teachers union officials decried the plan. Taxpayer advocates were outraged. "It just shocks the conscience to see what they spend on themselves," said Steve Weingarten, a spokesman for United Teachers Los Angeles who is part of the union team negotiating for higher teacher salaries. "They feel entitled to it. But when it comes to classroom instruction, they want it at bargain-basement prices."
Taxpayer advocates were also outraged. "This is the most ill-managed, poorly run school district in the nation, and for them to be buying $7 million for furniture (and carpets) for administrators, I don't see it and I don't think the taxpayers will see it," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in Sacramento.
Officials plan to continue with the purchase despite drastic cuts in state funding announced last week by Gov. Gray Davis -- reductions that could cost the district $74 million.
School officials acknowledged the district must make tough decisions in light of Davis' proposed budget cuts but said the furniture and carpet were included in the $184.2 million plan approved last month by the board to finance the Beaudry project.
The district will borrow the money in the form of certificates of participation, a type of bond that it will begin to repay in two years out of operating funds intended for the classroom.
"The kind of economy we are in now will cause us to look again at what the district is doing, and nothing will be exempt from that," said Anne Valenzuela-Smith, executive administrator in charge of the relocation project, who spoke on behalf of Superintendent Roy Romer.
She added that the district's need for a new headquarters should not be overlooked. The administrative complex will be razed to make way for a badly needed high school.
"We're going to need that school no matter what the economy looks like, and (district staff) need to be housed somewhere," she said. "The question is how efficiently and cost-effectively."
But critics said the money should go for textbooks, academic programs and other crucial projects -- not office furniture. "Every dollar taken out in certificates of participation on that building is paid for out of the general fund money over 30 years," said board member David Tokofsky, whose district includes part of the East San Fernando Valley and is a vocal opponent of the Beaudry project.
Project manager Anthony Mason estimates that the work stations will cost $900 to $1,000 each. By comparison, it would cost about $500 to dismantle, move and reassemble existing units -- many of them old and in some cases damaged. But the district will salvage what it can, he said.
"We're also keeping the light fixtures, reusing door handles, reusing door frames and doors, the smoke detectors, the sprinkler heads. We're reusing everything that can be reused," said Mason, adding that most computers, keyboards and many ergonomic chairs will be kept.
Division managers and others with their own offices will either take their furniture with them or receive pieces from the five floors of furniture being left behind by the Beaudry building's owner and tenant, Bank of America, as part of the sale.
Mason said using uniform work stations will save at least 10 percent of the space on every floor, helping to ensure that the district won't need to lease additional space for its administrators downtown. "If you sacrifice this now, you'll live with this for the life of the building," he said.
Valenzuela-Smith said her office will receive bids next week for the furniture, which is expected to cost $4 million to $5 million and may include refurbished material. An additional $2 million has been reserved for carpet at about $20 per yard.
"And to the extent we can't utilize the old desks in Beaudry, we've got a great outlet -- the schools," she said.
That aspect of the plan did not sit well with teacher representatives. "That's their standard operating procedure. They give the leftovers to the teachers and to the schools after they take the first grab," said UTLA's Weingarten.
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