STOP bulldozing San Diego Schools to build apartment complexes
The Issue
To the kind attention of –
John Lee Evans, Michael McQuary, Richard Barrera, Marne Foster,
Members of the San Diego School District Board of Education
Dear Members of the SDUSD Board of Education,
You may already be aware that the San Diego Unified School District staff’s plans to BULLDOZE a perfectly-good, well ranked school in the Scripps Ranch area and instead lease that school-district-owned land to a private developer – for 66 years - to build a multi-story apartment complex. You might have also heard about the vocal unanimous opposition to this project from the affected community through their direct petitions/emails to you and through media coverage of the issue such as the one here http://www.kusi.com/story/31017372/scripps-ranch-residents-outraged-by-san-diego-unified-plan-to-close-charter-school-for-apartment-complex
The members of the SDUSD Board need not have to reminded that the San Diego voters chose to elect you to the Board to do what is right for the citizens of San Diego and their communities, and to uphold the mandate of SDUSD – which is providing quality education to the children of San Diego – and definitely NOT entering into real estate business deals at the expense of the kids’ education. Come this fall election season, we San Diegans would be looking for evidence that the Board members indeed upheld that mandate. Voting to approve this project would only mean making a mockery of the faith San Diegans had in you when they voted you to office.
We sincerely hope you will do the right thing for San Diego BY VOTING TO REJECT THIS PROPOSAL when it comes before the Board.
Listed down below are some of the reasons why this proposal is a BAD deal for every one – the kids, the community and even the SDUSD. The only person who is going to benefit from this deal is the private developer (Monarch Properties/Builders).
1. First and foremost, this proposal, if approved, will set a dangerous precedent – that perfectly good schools can be bull-dozed and the land given to private vested interests to fill their own coffers at the expense of tax payers. If approved, we can expect many more proposals like this from selfish vested interests to bulldoze more good schools.
2. This specific proposal is financially bad for everyone except the private developer of the complex. The SDUSD claims it will get ~35 million dollars over the period of 66 years. What they are NOT saying is this – even by the developers own estimation, the developer stands to gain upwards of 1 BILLION dollars. Even a fifth grader in any San Diego school would be able to tell that this is a bad deal for the School District and by extension, for the students and taxpayers.
3. To add icing to the big chunk of cake that the developer is already getting as mentioned above, the developer will pay NOTHING in property taxes as the site is owned by School District while it is totally not used for any educational purpose.
4. To fly under the radar and to do lip-service to the so-called “Joint Occupancy” Agreement between the School District and the developer – the proposal has a STEAM lab for which no plans of funding have been identified, let alone maintaining it, AND, to make mockery of the system and the citizens, the developer is proposing a “community garden” whose size is 1500 sq.ft. The area split of this joint occupancy is – 98% area for privately-owned apartment complex and 2% area for the mockery of a STEAM lab and community garden combined.
5. The SDUSD staff misrepresented facts to the California State Board of Education to get their approval. The staff maintained that the affected Innovations Academy School had already found an alternate site and that the School district is helping them in all ways. This is totally contradicting the statement of the affected school’s principal who has declared they don’t have any site identified and they are not getting any help from School district staff on this and that they are practically evicted to the street against their wish. Please note this is perfectly functioning good ranked school of ~350 students.
6. Last but not the least, the affected community – Scripps Ranch - was literally kept in the dark during this development. They were left with not even two months to get to know the facts and lodge their protest. You can find the links below voicing their unanimous opposition below. All the community planning groups including the community school planning group have come out against this proposal.
a. Scripps Ranch community residents’ opposition to the project - http://tinyurl.com/na4t7tv
b. FB page showing community’s opposition - https://www.facebook.com/SaveGeenScrippsRanch/
c. Blog - http://savesr.blogspot.com/
Cc – Kevin Beiser of SDUSD Board, the California State Board of Education and the Governor of California
Petition Closed
The Issue
To the kind attention of –
John Lee Evans, Michael McQuary, Richard Barrera, Marne Foster,
Members of the San Diego School District Board of Education
Dear Members of the SDUSD Board of Education,
You may already be aware that the San Diego Unified School District staff’s plans to BULLDOZE a perfectly-good, well ranked school in the Scripps Ranch area and instead lease that school-district-owned land to a private developer – for 66 years - to build a multi-story apartment complex. You might have also heard about the vocal unanimous opposition to this project from the affected community through their direct petitions/emails to you and through media coverage of the issue such as the one here http://www.kusi.com/story/31017372/scripps-ranch-residents-outraged-by-san-diego-unified-plan-to-close-charter-school-for-apartment-complex
The members of the SDUSD Board need not have to reminded that the San Diego voters chose to elect you to the Board to do what is right for the citizens of San Diego and their communities, and to uphold the mandate of SDUSD – which is providing quality education to the children of San Diego – and definitely NOT entering into real estate business deals at the expense of the kids’ education. Come this fall election season, we San Diegans would be looking for evidence that the Board members indeed upheld that mandate. Voting to approve this project would only mean making a mockery of the faith San Diegans had in you when they voted you to office.
We sincerely hope you will do the right thing for San Diego BY VOTING TO REJECT THIS PROPOSAL when it comes before the Board.
Listed down below are some of the reasons why this proposal is a BAD deal for every one – the kids, the community and even the SDUSD. The only person who is going to benefit from this deal is the private developer (Monarch Properties/Builders).
1. First and foremost, this proposal, if approved, will set a dangerous precedent – that perfectly good schools can be bull-dozed and the land given to private vested interests to fill their own coffers at the expense of tax payers. If approved, we can expect many more proposals like this from selfish vested interests to bulldoze more good schools.
2. This specific proposal is financially bad for everyone except the private developer of the complex. The SDUSD claims it will get ~35 million dollars over the period of 66 years. What they are NOT saying is this – even by the developers own estimation, the developer stands to gain upwards of 1 BILLION dollars. Even a fifth grader in any San Diego school would be able to tell that this is a bad deal for the School District and by extension, for the students and taxpayers.
3. To add icing to the big chunk of cake that the developer is already getting as mentioned above, the developer will pay NOTHING in property taxes as the site is owned by School District while it is totally not used for any educational purpose.
4. To fly under the radar and to do lip-service to the so-called “Joint Occupancy” Agreement between the School District and the developer – the proposal has a STEAM lab for which no plans of funding have been identified, let alone maintaining it, AND, to make mockery of the system and the citizens, the developer is proposing a “community garden” whose size is 1500 sq.ft. The area split of this joint occupancy is – 98% area for privately-owned apartment complex and 2% area for the mockery of a STEAM lab and community garden combined.
5. The SDUSD staff misrepresented facts to the California State Board of Education to get their approval. The staff maintained that the affected Innovations Academy School had already found an alternate site and that the School district is helping them in all ways. This is totally contradicting the statement of the affected school’s principal who has declared they don’t have any site identified and they are not getting any help from School district staff on this and that they are practically evicted to the street against their wish. Please note this is perfectly functioning good ranked school of ~350 students.
6. Last but not the least, the affected community – Scripps Ranch - was literally kept in the dark during this development. They were left with not even two months to get to know the facts and lodge their protest. You can find the links below voicing their unanimous opposition below. All the community planning groups including the community school planning group have come out against this proposal.
a. Scripps Ranch community residents’ opposition to the project - http://tinyurl.com/na4t7tv
b. FB page showing community’s opposition - https://www.facebook.com/SaveGeenScrippsRanch/
c. Blog - http://savesr.blogspot.com/
Cc – Kevin Beiser of SDUSD Board, the California State Board of Education and the Governor of California
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on January 21, 2016