Posted by USA, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 17, 2009 at 1:13 pm

$14 million plus interest to save $0.4 to $0.5 million per year? Brilliant. So, how much money are they going to spend on this campaign?

Posted by Treasurer, a resident of the Cuernavaca neighborhood, on Feb 17, 2009 at 9:57 pm

A 30 year, $14M bond at 5% would cost about $900k a year; the proposed electric bill savings are about half that, $450k a year. Where did the school district administrators learn their math?

Posted by Jon Wiener, a resident of another community, on Feb 17, 2009 at 11:24 pm

Treasurer,

You're ignoring the potential savings from replacing or retrofitting the boiler rooms for the two pools. Though the article doesn't provide a number, these are likely to be pretty substantial.

Posted by eric, a resident of another community, on Feb 17, 2009 at 11:51 pm

not to mention fixing energy costs long term with cheap money. Reasonable to assume cost of power will increase more than inflation.

Still, Treasurer makes a valid point. Is the savings as marginal as the article would imply, or is the Voice missing something important? What is the expected useful life of solar panels?

Posted by USA, a resident of the Old Mountain View neighborhood, on Feb 18, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Also, what is the expected remaining life of the school buildings? Are they going to be around in 30 years?

Posted by Parent, a resident of another community, on Mar 11, 2009 at 1:07 pm

The schools underwent a complete renovation within the last decade, I believe, so they should be around for another 30 years.