To The People of Emeryville,
I've made Emeryville my
home for almost four years now.
I've enjoyed living here and want to contribute to the community in a
way that could best utilize my expertise and to insure successful completion of
the most important endeavor the community will embark upon, the building of the Emeryville Center of Community Life.
As an licensed Architect
with more than 20 years of experience in the design and construction of public
K-12 schools, I've observed how schools work on a day to day basis, how staff
and students interact, and how an administration works to achieve their goals.
One of the most recent
projects I was involved with was the DeAnza High School replacement campus in
the West Contra Costa Unified School District. That project was similar in scope to our ECCL project; a
complete school replacement and enhancement of the entire campus.
Prior to the start of
project, enrollment was approximately 800 students with a possibility of
closure. After its completion,
enrollment is 1300 (full capacity) with a diverse student body and a waiting
list to attend.
This is a prime example
of what a new school can do.
Emery Schools Superintendent, Dr. John Rubio was gracious
to invite me to the recent groundbreaking ceremony for the ECCL. While there, I could feel the group's
excitement with turning the first shovel of earth. However, there's a long road ahead of us that we want to
make as smooth as possible.
Wanting to make sure
we're on that road, I've initiated a review of the project and have discovered
several items that are of concern and have presented them to the School Board.
• The elevator shaft in the Main Classroom Building
is too small for the Code specified sized elevator cab (must be able to fit a
medical gurney for emergency use).
• The restroom in the same building does not meet
code for equal number of plumbing fixtures between men and women toilet rooms.
• In an emergency, exiting the Second Grade
classrooms from the second floor of the Main Classroom Building is confusing,
dangerous, and possibly non-code complying.
Those are just a few of
the issues that if left unaddressed will have serious ramifications.
There has to be someone
on the Board to ask the right questions.
If given the
opportunity, as a member of the Board I would take the same approach on all
other matters that would be encountered.
Sincerely,
Donn Lee Merriam
Donn Merriam is a candidate for Emery School Board this election cycle. He has been a homeowner resident of Emeryville since early 2011. Donn is a licensed architect 14 years with Deems Lewis
McKinley, an architectural firm based in San Francisco that specializes in
K-12 school design. He has had experience with numerous school districts throughout the Bay
Area in his capacity as a school site planner. His campaign website is HERE.
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reminds me of the elevator when the new classrooms were added to anna yates several years ago. they kept it locked to prevent students (and teachers) from using it.
ReplyDeleteit is an egregious "oversight" when mr. merriam can list two non code complying and one possible non code complying issues. surely turner construction and even departed roy miller should be aware of the building code.