Why I voted to kill the Water District project

Voting against a public works project is hard to do- esp. when it doesn't come out of your budget, and it is as important as a flood control project is. Thousands of families could be impacted by this decision. It wasn't something I did lightly.

Some quick background: The Santa Clara Valley Watter District proposed lowering the athletic fields at Blach by 10 feet to create a flood basin. In the event of a major flood, the basin would slowly fill with water, which would protect about 3,000 homes downstream. The funding was already approved by voters in a bond passed several years ago. The district would have received upgraded sports facilities, and the Water District would have borne the cost of any cleanup in the event of a flood.

Shortly after the vote, someone said to me that we might have been playing politics with the vote. Although this has been a multi-year journey to get this far, neighbors around Blach school recently stepped forward to voice their opposition to the project. I have to admit, their arguments did not sway me. I heard people say things like "the protected people are mostly Mountain View, so let Mountain View figure it out." I heard a lot of unscientific debate about the artificial turf the Water District was willing to install. Folks were concerned about the inconvenience of the trucks during the construction project.

All up, those arguments felt like a lot of NIMBY to me, which was disappointing. I genuinely believe we have a duty to help protect our neighbors. The same folks who felt this was a "Mountain View problem" would not be happy if the SCVWD suddenly didn't provide Los Altos with drinking water.

What it really came down to for me was space. The Los Altos School District is facing unprecedented pressures on our campuses. Enrollment this year has already grown at twice the pace predicted by our demographer. Each year, our campuses seem to be bursting at the seams. To me, it just wasn't prudent to tie up 7 acres of land in a long term agreement that we couldn't change. The District doesn't have enough property as it is. Locking up 7 acres in a water project just wasn't responsible to the students of our community.

I sincerely hope that the Water District finds another way to complete this project. There were several other alternatives that have been studied that might also be feasible. With a bit of work, I believe one of those other options would allow them to fulfill the project goals and help them protect additional homes from flooding. In the meanwhile, it's back to the job o educating our kids...

New Ideas in Education

We have been partnering with Sal Khan for a little while. We're his "pilot program" for Khan Academy, which is an effort to bring learning to as many people as possible. We're running an active pilot, and hopefully helping Khan tune how it works. He is something of a rock star in ed reform circles, because of the huge impact he's having. Locally, we've integrated his work into a handful of classrooms and are excited at the progress we've seen.


There's a good article by Fortune magazine that provides some good context.
(Article here)

There is also a lesser-publicized blog, which is something of an ongoing discussion between Khan and the students and teachers.
(Blog here)


I have to admit, I was not actively involved in setting this up. Hats off to our administration and the teachers involved for getting this going, though. It's EXACTLY the sort of thing I've been talking about locally for a while. We're here in the heart of the Silicon Valley, near a major research institution and some of the more inventive minds of our generation. We should absolutely be an incubator for new ideas like this. I'm thrilled that we're working with Sal, and wish him (literally) a world of success.

Blach Neighboorhood Traffic & Los Altos City Council

Last night I attended the Los Altos City Council meeting. The special session was called to discuss a consultant report on traffic in the Blach School neighborhood.

I serve on the LASD/City committee, so I have followed this discussion pretty closely. We've had a number of problems around Blach, made progressively worse as streets on each side of the school tried to make it harder for folks to use those routes to access the school.

I'm not unsympathetic to the concern. In some of the comments, I hear genuine concern for student safety, which is my #1 priority in these discussions. Unfortunately, each time residents have asked the city to take measures to reduce traffic on one street, it gets worse somewhere else.

I was pleased with this study in particular because it looked at the entire situation as a whole. This is the only reasonable way to distribute the load of 500 students who need to get to their neighborhood school. The consultant recommended several key steps, which I have urged the city to adopt:

Place a special traffic light at the intersection of Miramonte and Covington to ease congestion at that intersection

Create a class I bike path on Covington to separate students from vehicular traffic along this very busy road.

Create a Class I bike lane on Carmel Terrace to facilitate safe bicycle access to the rear of the school

Remove the "No Stopping" restrictions along Carmel Terrace and Altamead Dr, and make several improvements that would facilitate safe drop offs at the rear entrance to the school

various other improvements to other approach roadways, crosswalks, and intersections around the school

Through pure luck or misfortune, I wound up being the first person to provide public comments last night. What I said then was only reinforced by the 30-or-so speakers who came after me. I told the Council that there is no such thing as a perfect plan, but that I urged them to adopt as many of the consultant's recommendations as possible, and to do so with as much speed as they could muster. People will undoubtedly object to various aspects of the plan: Some are concerned that a traffic light might "bring more traffic". Others want to adopt all of the changes except the one right on the street where they live. Nonetheless, I urged the council to take action now.

In May 2010, we had a student-car collision near Blach school. I am very, very concerned that if we don't act soon, we will have more such accidents, some with permanent and perhaps fatal consequences.

I appreciate how difficult this is. Thirty years ago, Los Altos was a rural community. Now, though, the community has grown substantially, and the volume of traffic is here to stay. Asking to keep one street closed just pushes the issue to other streets, and increases the concentration of students somewhere else. We owe it to our fellow residents, and their children, to ensure they have safe routes to school. The answer to that lies not in keeping one area free of student traffic, but in opening as many pathways to the school as we possibly can. I hope that we can all work together to improve student safety and access to this important neighborhood school.

BCS Presentation

This past Monday, BCS came to present to the LASD Board about the BCS growth plan. For too long, we've been reacting to the annual facilities request without any meaningful visibility into how they're planning to grow over time (which would have a significant impact on the long term facilities solution.) We invited them to present to us so that we could understand their near-term plans and how that will change ove the coming years.

BCS Board Chair Ken Moore reviewed their enrollment history, and showed the stats for where they're planning to go. With this most recent facilities request, they're moving toward a plan of 3 classes in each grade level. In lower grades, it is common to have smaller class sizes than in upper grades, so they plan on addressing that by admitting extra students at the fourth grade to fill the classes out. I'm not sure how many parents will move their children at the fourth grade level, having formed friendships over the K-3 school years, but we'll get a chance to see that this year for the first time.

What was really surprising to me is the overall size of their plan. When BCS was first formed, they positioned themselves as a "small school". Even last night, when I attended a BCS K-6 recruiting night, their presentation stressed that they are a "small school". Their Monday projections, though, put them over 600 students in the very near future. This is larger than any school in the Los Altos School District. I'm not sure that I'd describe that as "small". Mr. Moore acknowledged this contradiction, and recognized that their Board seems to be a bit divided on whether to remain true to their founding principle, or whether to "address the demand" that they see.

Mr. Moore also outlined scenarios that would take them well beyond the 600-student figures. Knowing that, it's even more pressing that we solve the question of where they'll locate. They did hold out one carrot- that they might be willing to cap the size of the school if we resolve the space question. I actually don't have any particular issue with the size of BCS, except that as they grow, we may need to adjust LASD attendance areas if we have to change facilities to accomodate the BCS plan.

Overall I would say that the discussion on Monday was another positive step. It is the first time that we've engaged in a dialogue like this since their inception. I hope that we can continue to work together on this issue, and how it fits into the LASD Blueprint process.

Coming Events: Monday Meeting

This Monday's Board meeting should prove interesting for a couple of reasons:

1) BCS is presenting to our Board.
By far the most difficult part of our relationship with BCS is predicting their facilities needs. When they originally filed their charter 6 years ago, they told everyone they were aiming to be a "small school" of fewer than 300 students. They are now 381 students, and their recent facilities request for 2011-12 asks for space for >450 students. The LASD Board is required t provide facilities each year, but it's difficult to do this without an understanding of what their plans look like. A few weeks ago, we approached the BCS Board and invited them to come share their longer term plans with us so that we can make better decisions about how we'll meet our Prop 39 obligations.

I'm excited about this discussion, because it's the first time we've done something like this. I hope it is another step on a journey of working well together, and I look forward to ths discussion.

2) The Blach Water District project is on the docket.
We'll be hearing from the Santa Clara Water District about their request to use the Blach athletic fields as a flood basin to provide protection in the event of a 100-year flood. Their "pitch" is that we provide access to the land, and in the process, they'll be providing substantial improvements to the fields (new synthetic turf, etc.)

Along with the Water Board, we'll also be hearing from some neighbors who are opposed to the project. I'm glad to have the chance to have both groups in one place, and have the chance to hear both sides together. Weighing a project like this involves measuring the benefit to the community and weighing the impact that has on a different group. It's not an easy discussion, but it'll certainly be interesting.


I look forward to seeing many of you on Monday! Also, feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts on either of these issues.