I mentioned in my article last month that the Belmont Redwood Shores School Board has been considering a number of options for issuing bonds to address facilities issues (e.g., repairs and new classrooms) in the District, most of which are at the Belmont elementary schools and Ralston Middle School.

The School Board met on May 20 to discuss what sort of bond structure made the most sense in view of the District’s facilities needs and also had a good chance of being approved by the voters this November. Last month I described two of the options that were under consideration. Option 1 involved the issuance of District-wide bonds for $69M, which meant that taxpayers in Belmont and Redwood Shores would pay at the same rate ($27 per $100,000 Assessed Property Value) to fund the bonds, even though a very small amount of the funds would be spent in the Shores and we alone in Redwood Shores are already paying $30 per $100,000 APV for Redwood Shores Elementary. Option 2 was far more equitable as it involved the issuance of $58M in bonds in Belmont to fund projects at the Belmont elementary schools and half of Ralston’s needs, and $11M in bonds in Redwood Shores for small projects and maintenance at Sandpiper and the other half of Ralston’s needs. RSCA opposed Option 1 as inequitable, but supported Option 2 as being fair to the Shores.

I speak of these two options in the past tense as both were eliminated from consideration by the School Board at their May 20 meeting! It is a tribute to RSCA’s advocacy on this issue, and Shores residents who got involved by meeting with and writing to School Board Members and speaking at School Board and community meetings, that the Board recognized the inequity of Option 1 and decided to pursue a different course. On the other hand, the Board also ruled out Option 2 as it didn’t raise enough for the Belmont elementary schools. Instead of those choices, the Board decided to focus on a third option, Option 3.

Like Option 2, Option 3 involves two bonds. The first bond is a District-wide bond ($24.6M) that will provide $18M in funds for Ralston and $150K for the District Maintenance Building, and pay off around $6M in loans taken out by the School District to build the first phase of Sandpiper Elementary. (For more information on the history of Sandpiper, see the related article by Carole Wong inside this issue of The Pilot or go to www.rsca.org for a more detailed timeline of events.) This bond is projected to cost all District taxpayers approximately $10.68 per $100,000 APV. The second bond is a $49M bond for projects at the Belmont elementary schools to be paid for by Belmont taxpayers. Option 3 has not been formally adopted by the School Board (that should happen in early June) and the all-important language for the bond measure is still under development, so it would be premature to draw any conclusions at this point about Option 3. As we did with the levee issue, RSCA will monitor this evolving issue closely and communicate or take additional action depending on what we hear, our goal being a bond measure that addresses District needs and is fair and equitable for Redwood Shores residents.

— Doug Crisman , RSCA President