It is time for the leaders in our community to stand up and be counted concerning the shameful abuse of our environmental laws that we are experiencing. Our program to improve the schools that our children attend is being jeopardized.
Right now we have an outstanding superintendent of our high schools trying his best, his absolute best to:
Provide the best teaching environment possible for our children, to
Accomplish this with the most efficient use of public funds, and
Provide the safest schools possible recognizing the close proximity to one of the country?s major seismic faults.
And you know what? It is my opinion that he is being fought every inch of the way by a group of preservationist. This group which is being lead by people who have no children in the district, have no regard for the will of the taxpayers in six cities and have a complete disregard for our 1,500 children who attend San Mateo High School. They are caught up in their own selfishly based egos at the tremendous expense of the common good.
It is quite obvious that the beneficiaries of this protracted and selfishly based environmental war that is being waged against us are our children, those that desperately need the highest quality educational facilities that we can provide them.
It is my best judgment as a registered engineer with over 40 years of construction experience and other industry experts that I have talked to that it is not possible to retrofit an 80 year old concrete/masonry structure such as San Mateo High School and bring it completely in compliance with the current life safety codes. This is a critically important determination when building a structure in close proximity to the San Andreas Fault.
Do you realize the amount of additional money that has to be spent and is being spent to provide the architectural, engineering and legal support for this travesty not to mention the thousands of hours of staff time that is taken away from educating our children? Well, in my estimation, when considering the escalation and re-bidding of construction resulting from the years of delay it will easily exceed $2 million. That comes right off the top of the approved bond funding.
Then, the coup de grace is that our court system is supporting this violation of the common good to the fullest extent it can.
Believe me, it is time, in fact past time for our community leaders, our legislative leaders and our parents and teachers to make themselves heard ? STRONGLY.
And, be sure to give overwhelming support for Measure C on the November ballot. This will structure the wording so as to please the courts and allow use of the already approved bond funds to discriminately either repair or replace our school buildings.
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