Monday, March 4, 2013

Letter to the Tattler: John Affeldt


A Further Response to Brian Carver by EUSD Board Member John Affeldt

Brian, I offer a few thoughts here in response to your recent piece responding to my letter to the Tattler responding to  your original opinion piece of February 13th.  Again, my thoughts here are my own and not an official district or board statement.

Future Bonding Capacity Will Be Available

Your primary concern—that the district has maxed out its ability to issue any new bonds and upgrade any new facilities for the next 30 years—is well-stated and, at first blush, understandable.  However, your assessment assumes all things remain static for the next thirty years.  At least three likely developments will occur—any one of which makes a freeze on the district’s bonding capacity highly unlikely.  

First, if Emeryville’s overall assessed property values (AV) rise for any meaningful period of time during the next 30 years above the district’s conservative 4% annual estimate, then there will be new bonding capacity available.  As discussed in my previous letter, the last 30 years, even with at least three different economic downturns and the Great Recession, saw the City’s AV rise at a 7.49% annual rate.  And, as also previously stated, I think the investment in improving our school quality with the Measure J bonds will also ultimately drive our property values up.  

While you are correct that the redevelopment agency is gone, that fact doesn’t alter the desirability of Emeryville as a well-situated city for commercial and multi-family development.  Both common sense and Emeryville’s General Plan indicate that, based on Emeryville’s central location in the Bay Area, our population growth and new development will continue their upward trends.  The improvements and amenities that were made with Redevelopment funding over the past 30 years have continued to attract businesses and residential developers who want to fulfill the in-fill development opportunities that are outlined in the General Plan.  The fact that construction of new buildings has continued during the recession is evidence of the pent-up demand as are the School District’s projections of anticipated developer’s fees for school construction which indicate that this trend in continuing.  In short, with or without Redevelopment, the overall assessed value of Emeryville’s tax base will continue to increase over the next 3 decades.  

Second, the State is sure to issue school construction bonds and probably more than once over the next thirty years as it has done repeatedly over the last fifty.  According to the Center for Cities and Schools at UC Berkeley, there is a current $117 billion unmet need among California’s public schools for bonds to build new schools or repair or modernize existing ones.  The district will be able to take advantage of these state bonds to address new facility needs that arise.

Third, if property values throughout the state don’t rise sufficiently in the coming years, there will be a public policy response that also increases the ability of local districts to respond to California’s $117 billion need.  It’s important to remember that approximately 200 of California’s roughly1,000 districts have issued capital appreciation bonds (CABs).  Thus, a significant number of districts have resorted to CABs to respond to the fact that their bonding capacity in the near term has been limited by economic conditions.  If all those districts are squeezed out of building or modernizing for the coming decades, new legislative or proposition initiatives will emerge to increase local bonding capacity.  

Building a Full Service Community School Program Throughout the District

Next, I disagree with the characterization that the district is over-focused on buildings over program.  My prior piece already addressed the fact that the district is building a full service K-12 community school in which the primary purpose of the ECCL campus is to enable us to improve program quality over existing facilities (while simultaneously increasing efficiencies).  It is important to realize as well that, even in advance of the new facilities, we have already begun to move toward a community schools model with more robust wrap-around services for our youth.  The District has heavily invested in a number of programs that move us in this direction over the past few years, including, among others, our:

After school program coordination with the City;
Newly opened pilot Family Resource Center;
Collaboration with Life Long Medical and other health care providers to address the issues of family health that otherwise distract from education;
Internship programs with graduate students in nursing, psychology and social work to provide additional resources for our children and families;
Partnership with Head Start to ensure that families who cannot afford the Emeryville Child Development Center still have access to affordable childcare;
Numerous efforts to develop mentoring and internship programs for high school students with outside businesses;
Partnership with Peralta Community Colleges and CSU-EastBay for adding to the community’s opportunities for higher ed and adult ed/job training; and
Open school yards that are available for access by neighbors for recreation after hours.

These are just a few examples of the full service community schools programming the district has been developing over the last few years.  

Moreover, in addition to building the ECCL site with the City, the board has also been thoughtfully planning how to utilize all of its available sites consistent with a full service community schools model.  The board has, for example, designated the Ralph Hawley site as a locus for pre-natal to K programming and this year successfully moved the Head Start program into improved facilities there.  

As well, the district’s and the City’s new pre-natal through grade 16 master plan task force will review how Emeryville can best utilize the Anna Yates and Recreation Center sites in the coming years and how these two sites fit with the anticipated uses of the ECCL and the Ralph Hawley sites going forward.  The need to accommodate potential future enrollment growth, an issue you identify, can be part of these discussions.  I urge you and any other interested residents and stakeholders to apply to serve on this task force.  Applications can be obtained from wendy.chew@emeryusd.org and are due by Monday, March 10th. 

In sum, I feel the district is thoughtfully planning how to utilize all of its available spaces to improve program quality and that it will have sufficient financial resources down the line, when needed, to address its facility needs.



John Affeldt has a son in Kindergarten at Anna Yates and was appointed to the School Board in July 2012.  For over twenty years he has worked on educational equity issues at Public Advocates in San Francisco where he has twice been recognized as an Attorney of the Year in California for his education work.

19 comments:

  1. Well, Mr. Carver was wrong. The School Board doesn't believe the average home in Emeryville will be worth over 1 million dollars in 24 years. Turns out they believe this will happen in just 13 years...

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  2. Emeryville is not completely built-out. There is still land to develop/redevelop. Developing those parcels will increase the City's total assessed value. Multi-family housing brings in more property tax than single family housing. As housing stock and commercial properties change hands, values are reassessed, hopefully higher. It is too late to stop this disaster, we can only hope for the best.

    The bigger snow job being foisted on Emeryville residents is how is a shiny new building going to mitigate the issues that are reported in the latest Emery Secondary report card?

    http://www.axiomadvisors.net/livesarc/SARCIndexPDFs/01611680132746_11-12_1.pdf

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  3. This issue has been driving many of us crazy. Thanks to the Tattler for its persistent coverage. Thanks, too, to Mr. Affeldt, for using these pages to address several of the worrisome issues raised by the school board's actions.

    A helpful next step would be an official response by the school board.

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  4. There were 4 people at the last PTO meeting. 2 officers and 2 parents. No Principal, no board representative, no...parents. This is a systemic problem and the ECCL is not going to fix it. It is only getting worse as the focus is no longer on the existing school but the one 3 years down the road. This meeting was a rescheduled make-up meeting because only 2 of us showed up at the first. In any of the schools where the majority of the Emeryville kids go, (hint it's not in this district) parents would be breaking down the doors to get involved with their child's education. Alas that is a problem EUSD will never have apparently. I want a school where the parents are involved. It's not here and I see no movement to change that. In fact I see very little attempt by the school administration to get parents involved. I have seen parent's voices squelched on the other hand.

    In the meantime I will do what can while I can. I am sponsoring an A's ticket fundraiser for the school where you can buy field level seats to a number of different games for $26 a ticket and Plaza level outfield seats for $18. Anna Yates PTO will receive $13 for the Field level and $9 for the Plaza level tickets sold. It's a generous program put on by the A's and they handle all of the distribution so purchased tickets will be sent to your home directly from the A's. Money raised will go to help fund school field trips and extra-curricular clubs and activities like the drama club. If you are interested in going to see an A's game for a discount and helping Anna Yates at the same time you can pick up an order form at the Anna Yates front Office, the Recreation Center and the Senior Center. I can also send you a PDF version of the order form if you email me at picahenry@gmail.com
    Orders must be turned into the Anna Yates Front Office, the Rec and Senior Centers by March 29th so I can get the orders into the A's. Again you will receive the tickets by mail directly from the A's in a very timely fashion. This is the 3rd year I've done this and it is a very good program put on by the Oakland Athletics. Go A's (Anna Yates and the Athletics)

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    1. Not many parents at the PTO meeting? It might have something to do with the fact that the PTO bans parents whom they don't like. Or the fact that PTO parents are forbidden to criticize School District policy in any way. Most shockingly, parents that support the teachers are muzzled. The School Board doesn't support the teachers and PTO parents must support the School Board...no criticizing. The 'T' in PTO is not something they're down with. Basically it's "our way or the highway" at Emery's PTOs. Any parents that would try to change the organizations for the better are shown the door.

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    2. The PTO is misnamed, it should really be called the PSDO or Parent School District Organization.

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  5. That's right Brian pick on the few of us who are actually doing something. You come, lob a bomb and leave. Hardly constructive participation. You are nothing but a bully in that sense. You could be an asset but you chose to pick on instead. I have been at a number meetings where you were invited to stay and chose instead to leave so you could keep up your outrage charade. When it comes to actually working with the parents of the school to better the situation you really suck and do a diservice to the community and the ones who are out there working to make it better. Unfortunately you have a blind spot when it comes to seeing who your allies truly are.

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    1. I'm doing something, just not through the PTO. I'm facing down the bullies at the School Board who shut down dissenters. It would be nice to have some help there but alas..there's rarely any parents that care enough as you say to go to School Board meetings. Maybe it's because they're beaten down and the know when they're not welcome. Maybe trying to force transparency at the School Board constitutes a "disservice to the community" but I don't see it that way.
      Oh, and I'm not picking on you. You're not banning parents and disallowing criticism of School District policy.

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  6. You're a true Don Quixote Brian.

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    1. Well, I subscribe to the classical definition of a bully; there's a power relationship that's required. A bully is a powerful person who is aggressive against a powerless person. If you want to turn that around and make a bully someone who is not powerful acting with aggression against the powerful well that's your right but it's a redefinition.

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  7. Bravo Brian Carver! To Mr. Henry, please be aware that Mr. Carver is probably a Tax Payer in this FREE COUNTRY, and has an educated opinion about spending my future TAX dollars on your dumb ECCL. You should think about his opinion, and try to understand. At the moment, I think you are full of s---.

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    1. I'll let Mr Henry defend himself but you should know he hasn't been a true believer in the ECCL project, at least not that I've heard. In fact all I've heard about ECCL from Mr Henry is concern about it. He's talking about the PTO here, not ECCL.

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  8. Maybe I am full of shit, but I can read and I don't hide behind an anonymous moniker. Bravo for stating an opinion though. I'm glad it's not a conversation between just Brian and I. Mission Accomplished.

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  9. I support the idea of community access to healthcare and I would LOVE a performing arts auditorium. That said I'm not all that warm to the idea of having a County run healthcare clinic on the same premises as a k-12 school. Set it up at the Ralph Hawley site. Also I question how much access to those services I will qualify for and as I look at the demographics of Emeryville, wonder how many of it's citizens will qualify for the services housed in School District's buildings. Is it a good expenditure of our precious and limited resources? I can't answer that. I don't know enough about the programs they plan to put in there.
    So I have concerns...many. I also realize we need a school and if they are going to go ahead with the ECCL I would rather not put up a barrier but try to make it the best it can be. It's process you or I are not going to stop, nor do I really want it to stop at this point. It's going forward whether you like it or not. That is the reality. It is best to just get it done now and not let our kids languish in a rented out facility in Oakland. Get the damn pool opened as soon as possible. My goal now is to do what I can to keep the process as honest and transparent as my small voice can, and my first priority is to MY children. If I feel this District cannot provide a suitable education for my kids then I will be gone in a heartbeat. If I feel they cannot provide a suitable education for the community I would just as soon see it closed down so it's easier for Emeryville residents to seek better education outside the district.
    So Anonymous I may be full of it but what it is I'm full of I got from being in there and trying to make a difference. I believe the Board has our best intentions at heart and believe they are doing their best to make a difference. Maybe you are too. It's impossible for me to know that though. I definitely think the Board needs our help. And there we are sorely lacking as a community.

    Cheers. Go Emeryville!

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  10. Brian please publish the first part of my response. This is the second part.

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    1. Oops! I can't find it. Are you sure you sent it? If it's lost I apologize. It would not be the first time. Sometimes it just doesn't go through. I hope you made a copy. If not, can you try to redo it?

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    2. Maybe there was a reason it got lost. It was very long and detailed but at this point I've said enough. The gist was I am pro public schools and while I think the ECCL is an honorable project, the philosophy of which I agree, I think it is overly ambitious and have lost a lot of confidence in it solving a whole litany of systemic problems at Anna Yates that I listed in the previous version lost to the ether. That said I'm not going to be the one known as the person who put up barriers and destroyed the project so that our kids languish in a rented out sub-standard facility. I'm pretty much done here. I've said enough. I think it's clear where I stand. It really doesn't matter anyway. This is pretty much a conversation between about 10 people in this Community. And really, does anyone care? I don't see it.

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    3. The real problem is these few people started making hay about all this so far into the ECCL project there was no going back, to change the plan with Anna Yates now would mean losing 5-6 years of work, and countless thousands of dollars. Where the complainers about them shutting down Anna Yates were 10 years ago when they started floating that plan, I don't know. But its too late now, and you are just going to have to suck it up.

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    4. The decision to close Anna Yates was made 10 years ago. Yes, that's what the Superintendent to the schools says. So when the school district (the former Superintendent and the School Board) said the people of Emeryville would be able to decide about closing the school, I guess that was a lie. It was decided 10 years ago as you say....but It's never been revealed who decided that however. They need to tell us who decided that and they need to post facto quantify that for us. And why shouldn't the people of Emeryville be allowed to decide? After all it's their money. The '10 year ago argument' is rife with problems.

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