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Students stand up against GUHSD partisanship
By Lori Bledsoe
The Alpine Sun
EL CAJON — Students bravely spoke out,
with frustration, anger, and concern at the Oct. 16 Grossmont
Union High School District board meeting as issues arose over
many of the board members’ direct support of Proposition 8. In
addition, the Environmental Impact Report for the 12th district
high school is still on going as Proposition H funds end and
projects enter into closeout processes, but new venues to build
with fewer headaches begin to surface.
In the opening of this meeting, Board President Larry
Urdahl introduced speakers, which included several students who
courageously approached the board with clear and concise
statements concerning the boards’ decision to announce support
for Proposition 8. Each one of these speakers pointed out to the
board that it was not their position as a public board to
politically support or not support such an issue. Each student
in turn, reminded the board that as a school board, their
concern was for educational issues, and by supporting this
particular proposition, they failed to remain neutral, and
specifically alienated students in their district.
Katie Wright, the Project Manager, presented the
ongoing status of Proposition H. Wright said that as the funds
in Proposition H near complete committal, on-going projects are
entering the final closeout phase, which means they are in
completion. GUHSD with the help of Gafcon/Harris is aggressively
moving forward with the closing of 82 projects.
Wright introduced to the board another way to contract
construction during this time of modernization and renovation.
The lease/leaseback option has been used by other districts that
have revitalized their facilities with bond funds. As Wright
explained, this lease/leaseback option allows the district some
versatility in the choice of contractors as well as the
contractor’s liability in the project.
As it stands now, the district, by law, must choose the
lowest bidder when choosing a contractor for a project. This
contractor however is not always the best choice for the
project, and even though the bid contract is low, the ending
result may have many overruns. The lease/ leaseback option
allows some protection against this.
Larry Urdahl weighed in on this, saying that the lowest
cost contract is not always economically sound when you have
about 87 percent in overruns.
Wright said that they were using this option for one
out of eight of the new science buildings that were beginning to
proceed into the planning phase. Urdahl questioned why the
district wasn’t using this procedure for any of the other
building projects and Scott Patterson said that this one project
was the ‘test case’.
Patterson said that this test case would provide data
on potential savings as well as what he called the ‘headache
factor’. If this test case is successful, it would open up
opportunities to use this option in future construction
projects.
Wright then touched on the Environmental Impact Report
for the 12th high school that has been in process since 2007.
This on-going study is currently in process on the three sites
that GUHSD has declared probable building sites for the 12th
high school, Wright’s Field, the Lazy A Ranch, and Chocolate
Summit.
Wright is anticipating a completion of the required
studies by December 2008, and expects to see a released draft of
the EIR by January 2009. Wright explains that this report is a
lengthy study on biological, technical, and cultural issues of
all three areas.
As the studies progress, findings on the different
sites can and have initiated new studies. For instance, any
hazardous materials findings will initiate a new study, as well
as any cultural findings, which include actual remains or
pottery. Biological studies tend to take time, as researchers
must visit the sites during seasonal habitations.
Each of these areas in the study causes the study to
take time. Nevertheless, as Wright also explained, this study
will be thorough, and ‘bullet-proof’. When the EIR is presented,
it should be able to survive any challenges made to it.
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