Citizen's Oversight Chairman Resigns In Protest

Crisis at center of Center of Community Life:

Second Resignation At Oversight Committee

At Thursday night's City/School Committee meeting, the Chair of the
 Measure J Citizens' Oversight Committee, Emeryville resident and parent Brian Carver, indicated that he does not intend to seek an additional term on the Committee due to his
 having "lost faith" in the Center of Community Life project and in the School Board's
 management of it.

  The action makes the second such resignation in less than a year for the embattled Oversight Committee.

  

Mr Carver, an attorney and professor at Cal Berkeley's School of Information, gave his monthly report on Oversight Committee activities in
 which he described the Committee's continuing frustration with trying to
 work with the District Staff and Board on even mundane issues such as 
the structure of the Committee and member term lengths and also
 explained that his one-year term as Chair would be expiring making this 
his last report as Chair to the City School Committee.  



Schools Superintendent Debbra Lindo and Council member Nora Davis followed his
 monthly report by praising Mr Carver's work on the Committee over the last
 year, acknowledging the difficulty of the task.
  



Mr Carver then told the Committee that he had also
 prepared a public comment to express his own personal view of the last
 year's work of the Oversight Committee.  

At that point he told shocked attendees he would not be inclined to continue serving on 
the Oversight Committee because he had lost faith in the Center of Community Life project
 and in the District's handling of it. 

  

Mr Carver said he could not summarize a
 year's worth of issues but would highlight three:



First, he argued that the Board should have a clearly articulated
 long-term plan for all three of the School District properties, Emery High School, Anna
 Yates Elementary School, and the abandoned Ralph Hawley Middle School.  He added that it was “irresponsible” for 
the School Board not to clearly communicate to the public such plans for all
 three properties, instead of focusing $95 million  of bond
authorization that will take 20-40 years to pay off all on a single
 property.



Secondly, Mr Carver argued that the Board should be open to alternatives to 
the Kindergarten through 12^th grade co-location model that the Board favors. He explained that
 parents and a former school board president have repeatedly asked the
 District to seriously consider such alternatives but the District
 instead carries on blindly with a single-minded devotion to the K-12
 silver bullet.   Mr Carver argued that even if the K-12 model were 
educationally superior, which he disputed, he said that the finances 
and the space available “don't pencil out” and that the District would be 
better able to achieve its goals if they were not trying to cram
 everything onto the single High School site.



Lastly, he said that it should not be so hard to contribute one's
 opinions on what one would like to see in a future school and community 
center.  He said he has felt ostracized for expressing a different 
opinion than the District staff and Board.



He concluded by highlighting for the public what he thinks is a 
looming mistake on the horizon. He said that the District will likely
 soon finalize its decision to enter into a “lease-leaseback” arrangement 
with Turner Construction for the construction of the Center of Community Life, likening it 
to writing Turner one big check and hoping for the best.  Mr Carver argued
 that in this economy, the District should instead put the project out 
for competitive bidding, a process he said could save the District 
millions of dollars.



Later that same meeting the City/Schools Committee blithely approved the Center of Community Life’s
 conceptual design, placing K-12 and Community Services all on the High School 
site, without so much as a word in response from a school board or city 
council member to the (former) chairman of the Citizen’s Oversight Committee, Mr Carver's concerns.

Mr Carver's resignation in protest makes the second time for the Citizen's Oversight Committee; last September, committee member Shirley Enomoto resigned from her position in protest citing an unsupported and recalcitrant School Board.  Ms Enomoto was serving as the State mandated taxpayer's representative to the Oversight Committee.


Brian Carver lives in the Triangle neighborhood with his wife, council member Jac Asher and their two children who both attend Emeryville public schools.