John Swett Education Foundation has asked me to participate in a forum and are currently trying to arrange a date and agreement of all parties. Please if you are interested in understanding our views, I would request that you attend this event if it can be arraigned. I available now for any questions you may have. I will paste a letter that I recently wrote which pretty well outlines how I feel about Measure M. Both of my children attended that school. Letter: I hope that you can appreciate my honesty and not read this in anger, nor use any of this out of context. This is my personal opinion, not that of any committee, I take responsibility for my opinion. I have now come out officially with my support for Measure M, not that anyone was necessarily confused about that. My belief is that building a new Carquinez is the best that we can do for the children and our community. I am convinced that if we rebuilt the current structure to meet CURRENT standards it would be more expensive and less functional. I say Current standards, because to me using any type of grandfathering of a sub-current standard for a school, hospital, or any such structure is not an option for me. As you may or may not know, I was on the Citizen Bond Committee for all of the years of the construction of John Swett High School.While I would say that the reporting was somewhat confusing at times (all such large projects are), it is clear that all funds were expended in the proper way. In the beginning of that project we had very positive indications that we would have funds from the government, but as you know the economy took a downward turn and those funds dried up. We cannot know for sure until the Bond is passed, the funds are available and we request the funding whether we will actually have such funds. I assure you that once a bond passes all avenues will be capitalized, hopefully some government funding will be available, but we cannot go into this project with that expectation. We also found some very big surprises (structure issues and toxic waste) during the process of rebuilding John Swett which cost a considerable amount over what we had originally estimated. I feel we would be in the same boat with Carquinez. With regards to the use of the field of John Swett HS, that is a REAL issue that needs to be addressed regardless of the outcome of the election, but should not factor in to how we feel about Carquinez. With regards to Finish John Swett, then go on to Carquinez,...why? Dont these kids deserve it now...what is the climate for two more bonds? How long will those take? I think we all feel that something needs to be done now. I am also running for John Swett Unified District Board Member. I have worked in the schools and the community for some time. My focus has been to bring the schools and the community together, to increase our humanity through programs like Challenge Day and to increase our test scores and the level of education for our kids.If measure M does not pass, it will also be my focus to bring our community more into the process of deciding where we go from here. If it does pass, I will work diligently to ensure the funds are properly expended and capitalized on. I hope you appreciate my honesty and understand that I will be a very good choice for our schools. Thank you for your time Debbie
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 01:50:58 +0000
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