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Uploaded: Friday, March 15, 2013, 9:55 AM
Fortune cookie sets tone for Cubberley recommendation
Council, school board members laud report but stress tough planning, finance tasks ahead
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by Chris Kenrick
Palo Alto Weekly Staff
A fortune cookie set the tone for a meeting of Palo Alto's elected officials on the future of Cubberley Community Center Thursday night.
"You're going to have to work hard to push this project up to the top of the hill," said the fortune, which was saved and read aloud by former mayor Lanie Wheeler, a member of a Community Advisory Committee on the future of Cubberley.
Wheeler, who was mayor of Palo Alto in 1996, was among the committee members who presented recommendations for shared use of Cubberley to a joint meeting of the City Council and Board of Education.
The committee painted a vision of a rebuilt Cubberley 15 or 20 years from now, where efficient reconfiguration and shared use of space could allow for a community center as well as a comprehensive high school to meet the growing enrollment in Palo Alto schools.
The status quo -- the city's annual payment of $7 million a year to the school district to lease the aging campus as a community center -- is no longer viable, members said.
If and when the current lease is renegotiated in 2014 it must contain provisions for longer-term planning and investment, the committee said.
City Council and school board members praised the work of the 28-member committee but said achieving its recommendations will be an uphill task.
Council member Larry Klein, who two decades ago helped to craft the utility users tax that continues to finance the city's lease payments to the school district, stressed a sense of urgency.
"We -- all citizens of Palo Alto -- are sitting on a wasting asset," Klein said of the nearly 60-year-old high school campus.
"This community prides itself on doing things right, and having our citizens -- everyone from little babies to seniors -- using a facility that's falling apart isn't something any of us want to be a part of."
Klein said "significant amounts of money" must be spent in the short term to make sure that Cubberley doesn't "fall apart."
"I think we have a short-term timetable, not a long-term one."
Before the city's deadline for notification on lease renewal at the end of 2013, the Council and school board have "many issues dealing with finances in particular to work out," Klein said.
The committee recommended that any lease renegotiation contain a requirement that the City and school district within one year develop a memorandum of understanding to determine steps for a Cubberley master plan and a community needs assessment.
Former Mayor Wheeler, who chaired the advisory committee's finance subcommittee, said financing options for future development "will depend on decisions the elected bodies make and the timing of those decisions."
Many of the use options under discussion could legally be financed by a school district-led bond measure requiring 55 percent of the vote, she said.
Beyond the complications of joint planning by separate elected bodies is the fact that their jurisdictions are not completely aligned.
The Palo Alto school district includes residents of Stanford University as well as some parts of Los Altos Hills. And residents of Palo Alto's Monroe Park neighborhood, who pay the utility users tax that finances the Cubberley lease, are in the Los Altos school district.
Alex Panelli and Jim Olstad, who both served on a 2010 citizens committee that examined Palo Alto's infrastructure needs, said the financing of the school district through the city utility users tax deserves greater taxpayer scrutiny.
"I don't -- and I think a large number of the population of the city won't -- think we should just continue the advocacy of subsidization, whether it's through the utility users tax or other dollars over to the district's coffers," said Olstad, who noted his children also had gone through Palo Alto public schools.
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Posted by Midtown resident, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 1:19 pm In other words, I would gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today.
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Posted by These reports are worth reading., a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 2:06 pm Actually, this is a report about planning a facility for the future...and saving future expense as the community grows. Did you bother to read the reports, Midtown Resident?
I strongly recommend you read the subcommittee reports. The final report and executive summary really don't capture some key issues that will help you understand the economics of these recommendations.
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Posted by Blah blah, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 2:14 pm Executive summary: City to continue to pay districts legal, PR, and inflated executive compensation. If you dont like it who cares? bahahahahah. Direct questions to Mandy Lowell Munger.
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Posted by Midtown resident , a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 2:34 pm I have read the report. It doesn't do what this process was supposed to do, which was get us out of the bind in which Cubberly falls apart while the district pockets the money. Read Kleins comment. The plan for a high school 20 years from now is a distraction from today's still unsolved problem.
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Posted by neighbor, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 2:37 pm Make it a high school with plenty of parking. I disagree with weird shared schemes for several reasons: exclusive niche services, safety of having the general public on a campus doing who knows what, and the fact that Cubberley WAS a successful high school in a great location in the past. It can be successful again and should be utilized as a super high school!
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Posted by Ellen, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 5:23 pm The City can start weening the School District from continuing to rely on the $7.Million the City gives the PAUSD for Cubberley by eliminating the $2. Million the City gives them annually for "the covenant not to develop"
In other words the City of Palo Alto pays the School District not to develop Cubberley. This is a huge waste of money and should be eliminated from any future lease agreement.
Also the City and the School District should agree to an annual flat rate for the next five years. No more annual increases, if we keep doing this the money the City pays the School District for Cubberley will go into the stratosphere.
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Posted by Good vision. Now we need leadership., a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Mar 15, 2013 at 5:31 pm That said...What's key is that the majority response to the recommendations were positive by the public and electeds. I read all of the reports. Good ideas there. The subcommittee reports helped me understand things much better.
PAUSD does need to work with the city on this. For the first time, I see a glimmer of hope that they might.
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Posted by pa parent, a resident of another community, on Mar 15, 2013 at 6:40 pm PAUSD could easily reallocate $5million from administrator development Cathy Mak just set aside, and maybe fire 4 or 5 inept administrators who make life hard for parents rather than serving the parents of our district -- I saw on the news tonight that Oakland just dumped 65 administrators, how did they manage that? -- it's about time someone in the district stopped being penny wise and pound foolish by prioritizing that rent money above strategic facilities planning.
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