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By Mohan Gurunathan
The Mountain View Whisman School District staff housing project at 699 N. Shoreline Boulevard is a financial disaster that fails teachers, students and taxpayers.
What was initially pitched as a solution to attract and retain teachers by providing affordable housing has instead become a vanity project to further the ambitions of former Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph, his staff and MVWSD trustees — while wasting millions of taxpayer dollars and diverting much-needed educational funds.
A 2018 feasibility study commissioned by MVWSD concluded that staff housing could be financially viable if built on land already owned by the school district. However, Rudolph and the school board ignored the study recommendations, and proceeded to build the housing on land owned by private developer Miramar Capital. This has locked MVWSD into an unsustainable 55-year ground lease with an annual cost of $1.9 million.
The financial recklessness continued with construction of the building. The construction cost was initially promised not to exceed $56 million, yet ballooned to $88 million (144 apartments at an average price of $611,000 per unit). Rudolph and trustees ignored the feasibility study’s recommendation to finance construction by selling underutilized parcels of land owned by MVWSD. Instead, Mountain View taxpayers paid for the building through the March 2020 Measure T school bond.
Measure T is a $259 million school bond that was supposed to bring our children new science labs, art labs, and other modernized classroom facilities. To date, not a single dollar of Measure T has been spent on the science and art labs we were promised.
Nothing about building staff housing for MVWSD was even mentioned in the short form ballot text for Measure T. Former trustee Laura Blakely admitted the Measure T ballot language was intentionally flexible to allow for what-ifs, allowing Rudolph and the board to redirect funds at their whim.
If you are a Mountain View homeowner, you pay $257 per million dollars of assessed property value annually to support Measure T – through 2045. Around $87 of that $257 goes specifically to MVWSD’s housing project.
Today, the staff housing building is complete, but teachers report that most of the rents are unaffordable. It turns out that only 25% of the units are actually “below market rate” units. The other 75% are essentially market rate units, with studios at $2,400 per month and two-bedroom apartments at $3,400 per month. For many MVWSD teachers, these rents are simply out of reach.
There are also strict income limits for these units which greatly reduces staff eligibility. Teachers who choose to live here may be forced out after several years of salary increases. How does this project actually “retain” good teachers?
If MVWSD fails to fill the units, the district cannot cover the $1.9 million annual ground lease with Miramar. Where will the money come from?
Most likely, it will come from our children’s educational funding. In November 2024, the board authorized a resolution that allows “temporary borrowing“ of money from school educational funds to be used for the housing project. In January, the school board spent $174,000 in Measure T funds to buy luxury furniture for staff housing common areas, including such extravagances as a $4,100 conference table, $2,300 swivel chair, and three $2,200 side tables.
It gets worse.
Facing financial insecurity on how to pay the annual $1.9 million ground lease, MVWSD now proposes throwing away good money after bad: namely, buying the land from Miramar. Based on land prices in Mountain View, this could cost MVWSD in the range of $20 million to as much as $50 Million.
Where will that money come from? The options include: borrowing it (putting MVWSD further in debt), asking taxpayers for another school bond, or spending more of our children’s educational funds.
Who loses? Our children, who don’t get the modern science and art labs promised to them; teachers, who don’t get the affordable housing promised to them; and taxpayers, who paid $88 Million for a housing complex teachers cannot afford — or are not eligible — to occupy.
Adding insult to injury, Rudolph hired Washington D.C. public relations firm Woodberry Associates for $384,000, whose tasks included “establish Dr. Rudolph as a thought leader on affordable teacher housing.”
Where are the school district’s priorities? When do we say enough is enough?
It’s time to demand that MVWSD stop pouring money into this bottomless sinkhole. The district must develop an exit strategy that doesn’t waste more educational or taxpayer dollars. MVWSD needs to refocus on its core mission: providing a high-quality education for our children.
Email the trustees (trustees@mvwsd.org) and tell them: Stop throwing money into this pit.
Mohan Gurunathan is a parent in the Mountain View Whisman School District.
If the school district had placed 88 million in a trust and withdrew 4% per year they would have 3.5 million per year that could be used to increase teacher compensation. Does this project provide at least this much in rent savings
So, what are you proposing as an exit strategy? Sell the property to a developer or management company? Something else? How does that solve the underlying problem of affordable housing for teachers?
Mr Mohan enjoys his regular blustering, but as you can see he is all complaints and no solutions.
“We need an exit strategy!” Says the guy who over the past two years of complaining in this very paper has yet to suggest one.
The only reasonable exit strategy will be through first owning the land. Which, if he did some basic math, puts the District ahead in about 25yrs instead of paying 1.9 million per year. Even including interest!
If they want to sell the building, it’ll be a lot cheaper if they own the land. Who wants to buy a building where they don’t own the land?
I’m no real estate expert but even I know a good idea when I see one. And buying this is a good idea.
Common sense….is all too uncommon….said some famous guy.
You also seem to enjoy being on the district’s (or Ayinde’s) side and not once asked: “wait, who in the right mind would build on somebody’s land and spend 89M building on a parcel deeded for affordable housing?”.
I can almost guarantee you that NO real estate experts would ever think that’s a good idea.
But since you asked, there ARE other solutions than just buying the land from a for-profit developer who dealt us the bad hand in the first place, but it needs a lot of creativity and willingness to negotiate. Some current examples:
– Cupertino land swap by Santa Clara county to build teacher housing.
– The 231 Grant Educator Workforce Housing project in Palo Alto: involving Facebook (Meta now), Mercy Housing and Los Angeles-based Abode Communities, along with the County of Santa Clara, the City of Palo Alto, and participating school districts in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties
It is very obvious that affordable housing is a very complex issue, one that needs to be tackled with cooperation with different private and public agencies who genuinely care about the issue.
But it was Ayinde’s ego that drove him to try to “fix” affordable housing issue on his own, and brought down the school district in the process. We know that he also strained the district’s relationship with the city. This was his vanity project – he really wanted to be recognized as a visionary and failed very very badly.
However you want to spin it, Ramirez, that’s the truth.
I appreciate your sharing examples that are unfortunately unavailable to us at the stage. We can sit here and roast past decisions till the cows come home. I for one am looking for an exit strategy. None of yours fit the bill….when we don’t own the land.
No, you are NOT looking for an exist strategy – there are documented proofs that you have attacked parents who spoke about this issue before and were asking for exit strategy. We have receipts.
You weren’t there researching the staff housing project for hundreds of hours trying to come up with possible exit strategies – or even going to the public board meetings to simply understand what’s going on with the district and deman accountability.
What you are is an armchair expert and a troll, who loves nothing but defending the district and the Ayinde (who is, BTW, currently under state investigation) and attacking parents who have the guts to speak truth to power. Stop pretending that you care about the children and the schools.
Correcting the auto-correct: exist strategy –> exit strategy
Hey Ramirez- I ask you to show up at the next MVWSD board meeting and make your bullying insults publicly. You have a lot to say in the comment sections. But nothing to say as an Op Ed under your real name or public comment at a city council or school board meeting. When you insult people personally by trolling in the comments, your credibility is lost and no one listens anymore. Imagine how much more productive your efforts could be if you did your own research and shared it with the community in a respectful way with source links similar to Mohan’s op ed. I won’t hold my breath…
You want to meet a real bully? Listen to Mohan, Karin, Lily and Nhung bully and berate staff and Board members all night long.
In case anybody missed this:
At the June 2, 2022 school board meeting: the second AMENDMENT TO REIMBURSEMENT AGREEMENT FOR DESIGN AND PRECONSTRUCTION PHASE SERVICES with MVO: $84,780,994.07 total project estimate was approved.
This went up from the initial $56M estimate in 2021. The agenda item was scheduled for 30 minutes, but no other documents are provided. The discussion lasted only 10 minutes and the amendment was anonymously approved by the board.
Video recording of the discussion: https://www.youtube.com/live/rFau9W9rJLE?si=X66T9IhOXt_ul4oU&t=7901
Amendment doc: https://www.mvwsd.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_418774/File/Second%20Amendment%20to%20Reimbursement%20Agreement.pdf
Correcting the auto-correct: anonymously –> unanimously.
As in: “The discussion lasted only 10 minutes and the amendment was unanimously approved by the board.”
And here is the link to the original contract between the developer. Section 8.2.1 “The District’s total cost to plan, develop, design, and construct the Employee Housing shall not exceed $56,000,000. This shall be the Contract Price. ” It is very clear in the original contract that costs won’t go beyond that. And yet for some reason the district agreed to the developer’s request to increase the price to $85M. Why didn’t the board and supt push back on this? It seems the developer holds all the power in this saga. The city council should consider pausing FortBay/Miramar Capital’s (Mountain View Owners LLC) other projects until they work with the district to fix this mess.
https://cdnsm5-ss12.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_418774/File/About/Board%20of%20Trustees/Board%20Meetings/MVWSD-Fortbay-Miramar%20Development%20Agreement%20Final%20Clean%203-15-19%5B1%5D.pdf
What can Miramar do for the District ? They delivered a building. They’re done!
Why does Mohan keep saying it’s $88mm if it’s…..$84.78mm? Why is Mohan making up numbers?
Thanks for documenting this mess, Mohan. It’s a stain on the reputation of our community. I’m glad that Dr. Rudolph has moved on, but the damage and the expenses he is responsible for will linger on. The District will have zero leverage in negotiating a purchase price for the land. The Net Present Value of $1.9M for 55 years at an 8% discount rate is $23.4M, so if the District buys the land for more than that they will be making a bad situation even worse. (Ignoring any tax-related differences between owning and leasing.)
Bad math here Bruce. My finance is a little fuzzy, but the school’s discount rate is probably closer to 4%. I have a lot of other issues with your math, but I’m not an expert so I recommend consulting ChatGPT or something.
Wow- another case of a Santa Clara County school district’s 6-figure salaried administrators mismanaging taxpayer money with hype, false promises, self-aggrandizing projects, and costly results. Trump’s school voucher idea cannot become reality soon enough! Let the parent’s have the money to send their children to a private, or faith-based school or choose to homeschool. Public schools are a mess…
2015 the MV Voice ran a story about MVWSD getting a new Superintendent & how this would be great for the district. The comments section however document that someone with no experience, & from a consulting background could be disastrous for MVWSD.
Thank you Mohan for voicing the concerns our teachers & community continue to have so other districts can avoid these pitfalls. We want to invest in schools & teachers wisely, not end up with financial burdens that divert money away from classrooms & leave teachers disheartened, or feeling exploited for Rudolph’s or Conley’s vanity project.
The thing about consultants is they have to brand themselves to get work. Ayinde Rudolph’s contracts with MVWSD were written to always allow consulting side gigs. That needs to stop.
The next superintendent needs to be someone who’s 100% committed to Educating Kids.