TO: Board of Trustees

FROM: John Casey, Superintendent

RE: Friday Board Update

High School Project Update - Thursday's visit to Sacramento was productive and encouraging. Terry and I met with representatives of the State Department of Education, and also Dan Santos, and Jack Schreder, who is a facilities consultant I have worked with in the past. Findings from the day include:

1 ) Our strategy to continue to secure the 70-acre site (our original plan) is a good one. Our project will need some modification dates (to evaluate it to fit our site) but such modifications are not unusual.

2) Moving forward with our project maximizes our chances of securing hardship money. The work we need to do is to keep the State Department of Education (SDE) staff, the Office of Public School Construction staff, and finally the State Allocation Board supportive of the project.

3) We should be able to secure a letter from the SDE reconfirming the safety of the site without taking time for an aeronautic review. We need to provide a letter stating that the site defined in the SDE file is the site we are building within. Jim Bush from the SDE will check with Stan Rhodes (our field representative when the site was approved) to confirm the initial process addressed to our current site. After these steps, Mr. Bush should be able to confirm the site as a safe one for students.

4) In regard to the upper part of the site, keep thinking of the project in two phases. Phase one will be to secure all approvals and funding for our project. Phase two will be to secure the remainder of the site and plan its use. The funding source for phase two may end up being school construction funds, Park Bond Funds, or Nature Conservancy Funds. The SDE staff was clear that a stadium or parking lot for weekend events or community evening events is not their concern, and for such a use, an aeronautics review will not be necessary. Use on a daily basis as part of a school program will require State Department analysis, including aviation, if public school dollars are used to purchase the site. With the public sensitivity that exists regarding the school proximity to the airport, I recommend we obtain SDE approval for daily use whether public funds are used or not.

5) The SDE staff will approve our new building envelope (approximately 30 acres) for 2200 students.

6) We will use our local politicians to keep the State Allocation Board members apprised of our project.

7) Landmark and Radcliff projects are on schedule. We feared that ammonia tanks at a nearby (800 feet) meat packing plant would cause problems for Radcliff. The owner may be willing to reduce the tank size below 500 gallons (maybe with financial help from the district). This will alleviate this concern.

8) For all or these projects, and a few small modernization projects, we are sprinting to the hardship funds. There is about 100 million dollars remaining of the 1998 first bond sale. July 2000 is the second sale of five hundred million dollars. It is possible that the April meeting will use all of the 1998 bonds. We hope to be to the State Allocation Board in May for the high school project. We hope to have all projects funded by October. We obtained clarification regarding the Los Angeles United projects. The good news is that they do not qualify for hardship! This gives us a bit of breathing room!

I remain guardedly optimistic. Carlos Palacios and I will be setting a schedule of meetings to keep the city council apprised of our projects. If you have questions or suggestions, give me a call.

BUSINESS SERVICES FRIDAY LETTER
March 24, 2000

LANDMARK SCHOOL

All aspects of the Landmark are moving forward at this point. The following is the status of the site and school design.

Site Purchase The property is in escrow and awaits funding to complete the transaction, The property owner has put a large pile of dirt on the upper portion of the site for temporary storage. It is his prerogative at this time and is balanced with the fact that he will grade the site to our specifications prior to our actual acquisition.

Site Approval We have preliminary site approval from the CDE but are now working on the final approval. We have done the initial toxic study which has already been reviewed by DISC. They have asked for some additional tests including tests of the dirt that is on site, even though it will be removed before we take possession. We do not anticipate any problems with these requirements and should have final approval well before June.

School Design LPA has already started the work of adapting the Soldo design to this site. We have had a civil engineer preparing a base data map for the site which includes its topography as well as that of the surrounding parcels. LPA is meeting with that engineer to work out their additional requirements next week. We have scheduled a meeting with DSA in Oakland for the following week where we and the architect will try to schedule the submittal and approval dates with DSA. This has been done by some other districts and been successful in meeting critical timelines.

Project Submittal and SAB Approval We have this project at OPSC for hardship approval at this time. We expect to apply for site and planning money now to get some initial funding to support the project. We expect to submit the full project by early July with full site approval and DSA stamped plans. This should enable us to receive full funding for construction and hardship before the funds run out.

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