Board Meeting Notes
These are a few rough notes that cover some of
the highlights of this evening's Fountain Valley School District Board of
Trustees meeting.
The evening began, ironically enough, with a formal expulsion of a student, designated only by a number. if this isn't another clear sign of how the board thinks of the homeowners and these fields, I don't know what is.
The next item on the evening's schedule, a child from each grade at Newland school was given an award of recognition. On it's face an admirable act. but for dr ecker and the board to suggest that the 100's of people who had come out were just there for these kids is a huge misrepresentation. They know more than any that we were all here to discuss the sale of the three school fields. What an odd signal to send to the kids in the room "it's okay to misrepresent the truth."
The topic of budget soon followed where the board tried to suggest that the governor reneged on some deal to increase educational. I think it's incredulous that this board refers to the money lost as "their" money. This is another sign that they don't respect our own tax dollars and the hard work that we do as taxpayers to earn it. Such a cruel farce. Their whole justification for selling the property is that the land is not been used for 25+ years and that it is extremely unlikely that it will EVER be needed again.
The fundamental flaw in this thinking is that their study was only based on the last few decades of population growth. Since there has been a recent decline in child population, they have naively assumed that this will continue for the foreseeable future. The reality of this is that populations in our society ebb and flow all the time. eventually, once the current generation of homeowners move away and retire, new young families will come along to buy their homes. This will most certainly contribute to a huge upward surge in population growth. WIthout the three schools, the FVSD will have no choice but to convert all their existing recreation areas to school rooms.
During the evening, I notice many people wearing stickers. Each say: SOS and at first we all thought they were with us, until I read the details: "save our schools" and "sell our surplus". The problem here is, none of these properties belong to them. For them to disregard the will of the people shows what great disregard they have for the taxpayers and homeowners living in the area.
Almost without exception, all those who spoke in favor of selling off this "surplus" land were teachers who work for the Fountain Valley School District. Unanimously those that spoke against were property owners and residents of the area. It's almost like the fox guarding the hen house.
During the course of the evening, it has come to light that Wardlow field was originally donated for the purposes of building a school. How disgraced he would be if he knew that his donation was going to be razed and sold for cash.
One speaker pointed out that converting the real estate to cash, long term, will actually return less yield. Since the dollar is losing value to inflation. The best investment is to leave the funds invested as they are and to find better ways to increase their cash flow, as Real Estate. To suggest otherwise shows how little the board understands economics and how hungry they are for cash. What will they do, when the cash runs out. They've sold off other property before, how did that go? Where is the cash flow from that effort?
Things are running quite late, and I'm getting antsy to get up there and speak my piece. When they announced that there were no more speakers, I just about flipped my lid. Up goes the hand: "Excuse me, I was the first one here and still wish to speak." The coordinator, asked my name and claimed that she hasn't seen a form filled out from me. Which is odd as I turned it in directly to her the moment I arrived. Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but that does seem a little fishy.
So I finally, at about 10:20 said what I had to say. But they sure didn't make it easy. I requested a 90 day moratorium to give us a chance to evaluate this situation and find a better resolution. I also suggested that the board should be audited to determine if there were any mismanagement of funds.
At any rate, I spoke with another teacher there that had spoken that evening, and she said that the hearing speaker requests forms had been handed out at the school where she teaches. It would appear that the teachers were encouraged to speak by filling out the form at their school instead of at the meeting like everyone else. I guess they really wanted to stack the deck.
After another 15 minutes, the Board of Trustees returned from a private chamber to make their announcement. While sugar coating their decision process as they spoke, as expected, the Board unanimously decided to sell all three properties.
Alan Gandall
President
SaveOurField.org
The evening began, ironically enough, with a formal expulsion of a student, designated only by a number. if this isn't another clear sign of how the board thinks of the homeowners and these fields, I don't know what is.
The next item on the evening's schedule, a child from each grade at Newland school was given an award of recognition. On it's face an admirable act. but for dr ecker and the board to suggest that the 100's of people who had come out were just there for these kids is a huge misrepresentation. They know more than any that we were all here to discuss the sale of the three school fields. What an odd signal to send to the kids in the room "it's okay to misrepresent the truth."
The topic of budget soon followed where the board tried to suggest that the governor reneged on some deal to increase educational. I think it's incredulous that this board refers to the money lost as "their" money. This is another sign that they don't respect our own tax dollars and the hard work that we do as taxpayers to earn it. Such a cruel farce. Their whole justification for selling the property is that the land is not been used for 25+ years and that it is extremely unlikely that it will EVER be needed again.
The fundamental flaw in this thinking is that their study was only based on the last few decades of population growth. Since there has been a recent decline in child population, they have naively assumed that this will continue for the foreseeable future. The reality of this is that populations in our society ebb and flow all the time. eventually, once the current generation of homeowners move away and retire, new young families will come along to buy their homes. This will most certainly contribute to a huge upward surge in population growth. WIthout the three schools, the FVSD will have no choice but to convert all their existing recreation areas to school rooms.
During the evening, I notice many people wearing stickers. Each say: SOS and at first we all thought they were with us, until I read the details: "save our schools" and "sell our surplus". The problem here is, none of these properties belong to them. For them to disregard the will of the people shows what great disregard they have for the taxpayers and homeowners living in the area.
Almost without exception, all those who spoke in favor of selling off this "surplus" land were teachers who work for the Fountain Valley School District. Unanimously those that spoke against were property owners and residents of the area. It's almost like the fox guarding the hen house.
During the course of the evening, it has come to light that Wardlow field was originally donated for the purposes of building a school. How disgraced he would be if he knew that his donation was going to be razed and sold for cash.
One speaker pointed out that converting the real estate to cash, long term, will actually return less yield. Since the dollar is losing value to inflation. The best investment is to leave the funds invested as they are and to find better ways to increase their cash flow, as Real Estate. To suggest otherwise shows how little the board understands economics and how hungry they are for cash. What will they do, when the cash runs out. They've sold off other property before, how did that go? Where is the cash flow from that effort?
Things are running quite late, and I'm getting antsy to get up there and speak my piece. When they announced that there were no more speakers, I just about flipped my lid. Up goes the hand: "Excuse me, I was the first one here and still wish to speak." The coordinator, asked my name and claimed that she hasn't seen a form filled out from me. Which is odd as I turned it in directly to her the moment I arrived. Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but that does seem a little fishy.
So I finally, at about 10:20 said what I had to say. But they sure didn't make it easy. I requested a 90 day moratorium to give us a chance to evaluate this situation and find a better resolution. I also suggested that the board should be audited to determine if there were any mismanagement of funds.
At any rate, I spoke with another teacher there that had spoken that evening, and she said that the hearing speaker requests forms had been handed out at the school where she teaches. It would appear that the teachers were encouraged to speak by filling out the form at their school instead of at the meeting like everyone else. I guess they really wanted to stack the deck.
After another 15 minutes, the Board of Trustees returned from a private chamber to make their announcement. While sugar coating their decision process as they spoke, as expected, the Board unanimously decided to sell all three properties.
Alan Gandall
President
SaveOurField.org
Posted: Thu - February 10, 2005 at 10:50 PM
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Published On: Nov 23, 2005 11:08 PM
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Published On: Nov 23, 2005 11:08 PM