| Tracy Parents against MTYRS and YRS |
Tracy wrestles with school-bond failures By Alex Gronke Record Staff Writer Published Sunday, May 25, 2003 TRACY -- With budget cuts decided and its only charter school poised to find a new home, Tracy Unified School District officials can redirect their attention to a riddle that has long vexed them: Why do Tracy voters repeatedly reject school-bond measures? (HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS: MTYRS, YRS, YRS, LARRICK, DCS, MELLO-ROOS FOLLIES, LIES, DECEPTION, MOUSALIMAS, $6 Million DOLLAR OFFICES, $100,000 SIGNS, $300,000 PORTABLES..) No one is yet uttering the phrase "school bond 2004," but it may be no coincidence that in the same week Tracy schools Superintendent Jim Franco unveiled a plan to house the controversial Tracy Learning Center in an aging middle school, district officials met to discuss the future of school facilities in Tracy. Christy Rinauro, a spokeswoman for Tracy Unified, said the school district is preparing to ask Tracy residents what school-facilities issues, if any, are most important to them. "We need to spend some time listening to the community," Rinauro said. (NO KIDDING !!!- YOU CRAP ALL OVER THE COMMUNITY) Less than a year ago, the school district paid a Stockton political operative $93,000 to conduct two surveys of Tracy voters in advance of a $103 million school-bond campaign. Though backed by a carefully crafted list of specific school-construction projects aimed at appealing to Tracy residents, that effort became the only school-bond measure snubbed by voters in San Joaquin County in November's election. At the time of defeat, supporters of the school bond vowed to try again. But standing in their way, said some opponents of the bond, and even some supporters, was public perception. "I think they have an image problem, but I think it is undeserved," said Linda Lamoureux, a parent volunteer at Tracy schools and one of the residents tapped in the district's new drive to gauge community interest in school-facilities issues. "The disparity between the old and new schools is so great that people think the district is letting old schools deteriorate." Had the last school bond passed, the money would have built a new Tracy High School, probably on the southeast edge of town. It was in the aftermath of the bond defeat that school officials began to take a second look at an already-approved plan to build a three-story charter school, to be known as the Tracy Learning Center, on the west side of town. In February, Franco asked school trustees to halt progress on the plan, and last week he returned with a proposal that would put the charter school in the district's oldest middle school. The plan quickly gained traction from trustees who were growing hesitant to build yet another school in the newer, and richer, west side of town. District Trustee Tom Hawkins said the original plans for the Tracy Learning Center might have sent the wrong message to voters at a time when the school district would be revving up for another school-bond campaign. "It appeared that there was too much emphasis on the charter school," Hawkins said. Clif Schofield, a member of Tracy Tax Watch, a citizen group that helped defeat the school bond in November, agreed that a new charter school would have been a liability during a school-bond campaign. "If the Tracy Learning Center stayed (on Lammers Road) and they tried to pass a bond, it'd be a heck of a deterrent to pass a bond," Schofield said. But William Bosl, a parent of a student at Discovery Charter School -- Tracy Learning Center's first phase -- as well as a president of the charter school's governing board, said he bristled when the charter school and a future school bond were linked in public comments at recent board meetings. Bosl said he was told by a school trustee that the perceived unfairness of building a new charter school while older schools languished with broken gas lines and mold infestations would be too great a burden for the school district to bear at a time when school officials were struggling to win community trust. "But then you would never be able to create anything better than the mediocrity that you have because it would be unfair to everybody else," Bosl said. (What an Arrogant knucklehead!) * To reach reporter Alex Gronke, phone 833-1142 or e-mail agronke@recordnet.com |