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The Mountain View Whisman school board recently approved plans to install fences this year at Monta Loma Elementary School, which will be the last campus in the district to be fenced off.
The trustees signed off on the proposal in a 4-1 vote, with Chris Chiang dissenting, at a Thursday, March 14, board meeting. The vote caps off a contentious, yearslong process after neighbors objected to initial fencing plans in 2020.
The barriers are expected to go up starting in mid-July, with construction complete by early October, according to a schedule presented to the board.
The school board opted to move ahead with its existing plans of where to place fences on the campus, rather than incorporating suggested changes from the city of Mountain View.
The fences will block off the school buildings, as well as a Little League baseball field, but leave open a large grass multi-use field that’s frequently used by the public. That’s in line with the fencing plan that the board approved last September.
Mountain View city staff requested that portions of the fencing around the Little League field be expanded to sit closer to pathways near the edge of the campus. The city also wanted the fence at the back of the multi-use field be “squared off,” rather than run diagonally. This would fence off a portion of the field.
At last week’s meeting, school board members considered waiting to get additional information about these requests from the city, but instead opted to move ahead with the existing layout.
Fencing at Monta Loma has been a long-running and sometimes heated topic in Mountain View. The school district has erected fencing at all of its other campuses in recent years, but strong neighborhood opposition prompted them to hold off at Monta Loma. Those living near the school stressed that the campus is some of the only open space in their neighborhood.
For several years, the district reviewed its options, hiring a consultant to gather community input and come up with proposals. In September 2023, the board approved a fencing plan. Of the three options presented, it was the one that left the largest portion of the campus open to the public during school hours.
Last week’s vote was to approve the detailed design, budget and schedule for the project.
The fences at Monta Loma are expected to cost roughly $800,000, which will be paid for with proceeds from Measure T, a $259 million bond that voters approved in 2020.
Installing fences at all of the district’s other campuses cost roughly $2.5 million, district spokesperson Shelly Hausman told the Voice. Besides Monta Loma, the district has eight other elementary schools, across six sites, and two middle schools.
Board member Chris Chiang questioned the $800,000 price tag at Thursday’s meeting, and said he would vote “no” due to the high cost.
Chiang added that he felt the city should be contributing to the project because it’s the community that will benefit from fencing that allows all-day public access to the multi-use field. Chiang said that he knew the district hadn’t asked the city to pitch in, but that he still couldn’t support having the district spend this money alone.
Chief Business Officer Rebecca Westover attributed the cost escalation at Monta Loma to an increase in the price of materials.
The fences along the front of campus will be ornamental metal fences, while the rest will be chainlink, Chief Business Officer Rebecca Westover said.
Board opts against city’s proposed changes
In describing the city’s proposed changes to the school board, Westover said that the city had requested to move the fence further into the grass to square off the end of the soccer field – which is part of the multi-use field – and to align the fence with the adjacent pathway. She added that the city wanted to align fencing with existing sprinkler lines.
Making these changes would cost an additional $35,000, Westover said.
Board member Laura Blakely asked what the city’s rationale was for squaring off the field. Westover said she had not asked, but assumed it had to due to mowing the grass, adding that she believed this could be the same logic for moving the baseball field fencing.
In response to questions from the Voice, city spokesperson Lenka Wright said that the city’s proposal took into account existing irrigation layout and maintenance considerations.
“In addition, the proposed changes could provide more open space for students during school hours without impacting usable space for the public,” Wright wrote in an email.
At the meeting, board members were skeptical of the city’s suggestions.
“I think we’ve invested a lot of time and energy into seeking community input, and I think it’s important to stick with this original design schematic that has been presented from the district,” board member Laura Ramirez Berman said, in reference to the idea of squaring off the multi-use field.
Berman described herself as indifferent about the baseball diamond lines, a view shared by Blakely.
Trustee Bill Lambert described himself as “totally against” the city’s proposed changes, and noted that squaring off the multi-use field was similar to an earlier fencing option that the district decided against last September.
The city should have provided input earlier, rather than at the last minute, Lambert said.
The school district shared the schematic design with the city in February and requested comments by the end of the month, which the city responded to on Feb. 26.
Hausman confirmed that the district asked the city for feedback in February, but noted that the district also let the city know last year about the three options that were under consideration and didn’t receive feedback at the time on the choice that was ultimately selected.
“We proactively reached out to the city again in February to provide them with an additional opportunity to provide feedback. We wanted to make sure that we covered all bases and were not missing a significant consideration in the final design,” Hausman said in an email.
Board President Devon Conley said she was somewhat nervous about the fact that the district didn’t have a clear understanding of the reasoning for the city’s requests and worried about making a decision without asking for that information.
Lambert made a motion to approve the existing fencing plan, without the city’s changes incorporated.
Blakely initially suggested modifying the motion to give district staff discretion to change the fencing around the baseball field, depending on the city’s rationale. Lambert rejected that as an amendment to his motion. Westover also said that it would be hard for her to determine what qualified as a good reason, and that she would want to bring the changes back for board approval.
Blakely initially indicated that she would vote against Lambert’s motion without flexibility for the baseball fencing changes.
Lambert said that the city’s plan would put the fencing right along the pathway, and that the community had previously expressed concerns about any fences being too close to walkways.
Blakely replied that she was convinced. The motion then passed 4-1, with only Chiang dissenting.
When the Voice asked Lambert after the vote why he didn’t want to wait to hear the city’s reasoning, he said that the reasoning didn’t matter.
“They’re going to ram (the fence) right up against the path,” Lambert said. “I mean, they should know better than that. … It’s just not safe. You need room to walk your dog, to get by people, things like that. So I don’t care what their reasoning is, it’s not a good one – it’s not a good place to put it.”