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The Mountain View-Los Altos High School District’s Measure E bond passed easily in Tuesday’s election, kicking off plans to build brand new classrooms and school facilities at schools long overdue for a makeover.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, 66 percent of district voters in Mountain View and Los Altos voted in favor of Measure E, passing the $295 million school facilities bond with well above the required 55 percent yes-vote. Campaign leaders celebrating at the Tied House in downtown Mountain View were ready to revel after the first round of results showed positive signs that the bond would pass.
“I want to give a big thank you to everyone in the community for supporting our schools,” said Mountain View-Los Altos board member Fiona Walter, who has helped spearhead the campaign effort since February.
The frenzied lead-up to the election Tuesday night included everything from texts, emails, phone calls and door-to-door efforts to encourage people to support the measure on the June 5 ballot, including 20 phone banks that sought to reach as many people as possible. Walter said close to 150 people were involved in the campaign in some way, and they never assumed that passing the measure would be a slam-dunk.
“We were hopeful, but you still have to make sure everyone actually goes out to vote,” she said.
The high school district placed Measure E on the ballot as a strategy to deal with increased enrollment growth — both now and over the next 10 years — and upgrade aging, deficient and under-sized facilities long overdue for a replacement. Mountain View’s extraordinary housing growth largely fueled projections showing that the district can expect upwards of 500 more students, yet Los Altos High School is already scrambling for classroom space for its current student population.
The bond is significantly larger than the district’s previous measures, which had more narrow scopes and asked voters for a fraction of the nearly $300 million passed by voters Tuesday night.
Projects and new facilities laid out in the district’s Facilities Master Plan show how the money will be spent in the coming years, with more than $100 million in upgrades designated for both Mountain View and Los Altos high schools.
With the bond coasting to approval, district officials are planning to start with new classroom construction first, with designs for two-story classrooms already in the works. If all goes according to plan, the district is expected to break ground in fall 2019, with the new classrooms housing kids by the 2020-21 school year.
Proponents campaigning for Measure E described the bond as a much-needed path towards building school facilities fit for the high-performing district in the heart of Silicon Valley, noting that cutting-edge multimedia, STEM and robotics programs are housed in cramped old portable classrooms.
Many of the district’s ancillary facilities, like libraries and cafeterias, are also designed for about 3,600 students across Mountain View and Los Altos high schools, yet they have been serving more than 3,600 students since the 2011-12 school year. Enrollment is expected to climb to 4,498 students in the upcoming school year.’
Superintendent Jeff Harding, speaking to the crowd of supporters at the Tied House on Tuesday evening, said they can rest assured the measure’s revenue will be used to create facilities to support students for as long as five decades in the future, and that students in school today will be heading into retirement while the investment from Measure E will still be paying off.
Walter used the celebration to thank campaign members heavily involved in passing Measure E, including Mountain View-Los Altos board member Debbie Torok, as well as district parent Vaishali Sirkay and campaign treasurer Curtis Cole.
There are 46 new residential housing projects either under construction or in the pipeline throughout the Mountain View-Los Altos district, which district officials are expecting will generate at least 500 students. The master plan carves out $30 million of the $295 million bond measure for “future” enrollment growth beyond what’s projected, in case the number of additional students grows more than expected.
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The trichloroethylene plume of the Teledyne/Spectra Physics Superfund site, shown in pink, encompasses large sections of Mountain View’s North Bayshore. EPA officials are revising their cleanup standards with a new focus on airborne toxins. Map provided by EPA -
The Los Altos History Museum will hold its first-ever apricot tasting on Sunday, June 24 complete with judging in three categories. Bring your samples and enter. Image by PhotoSpin. -
Home sales are provided by California REsource, a real estate information company. It obtains the sales records from county recorders’ offices after the close of escrow and the information is published within four to eight weeks. Image courtesy of PhotoSpin. -
Mountain View voters showed their progressive colors in the June 5 primary election, showing greater support for Democratic candidates and tax measures compared to the rest of Santa Clara County and the state. -
Banchan, or small side dishes such as pickled cucumbers, bean sprouts, glass noodles and kimchi served at So Gong Dong Tofu House. Photo by Adam Pardee. -
So Gong Dong Tofu House’s beef bibimap with banchan, or small side dishes. Photo by Adam Pardee.
This is not a surprise at all and I hope that it works out for the best. I just hope that there is accountability and oversight so that we don’t see a Measure Z in eight years.
The people who were against Measure E live in San Jose and are libertarians. Mark W.A. Hinkle and Jennifer Imhoff. It’s not even in their school district. WTF? Why are they so concerned.
These libertarians who don’t want to pay taxes should live in a small island together and they all don’t need to pay taxes so won’t receive basic services such as clean water, hospitals, roads, schools, etc. I am sure it will work well for them.
@Anti-Libertarian,
I am not a libertarian, but I am frankly getting tired of extreme left wing politics that often dominate the Bay Area. I pay tens of thousands in property tax every year. And every few years, there are measures and/or propositions to increase taxes and/or fees to pay for things.
As a parent, I fully sympathize and side with improving education and health, but where’s accountability? I feel like measure E and the likes are essentially a form of extortion. Do you want your kids to go to good school? Pay us!
Stop fleecing.
It bring me much joy but not as much as the peoples
peanutboy, I wish wealthy folks like yourself would stop complaining about taxes. You own a house assessed at at least $1M if you’re paying “tens of thousands of dollars” per year. That’s ignoring whatever subsidy you’re getting thanks to Prop 13, and you have the shamelessness to complain about it. Guess what one of the things that makes your property values high: good schools. Grow up!
@LOL – you clearly don’t understand how Prop 13 works. If a property is assessed >$1M then Prop 13 is hardly helping an individual taxpayer’s situation. And $10k/year is more than the average cost per student in the district, so I’d say @peanutboy deserves your thanks for subsidizing the students in the rest of the state (which is an actual result of Prop 13).
The amount someone pays in property taxes is directly proportional to the year they purchased their home, not their wealth or income.
SCParent, I don’t think you’re aware of what Prop 13 does. The difference between the tax at assessed value and the market value of the house is the Prop 13 subsidy. Just because someone bought a $1M house in 2010 that is now worth $3M doesn’t mean they’re not being subsidized to the tune of tens of thousands per year by their neighbors. In fact, the subsidy is largest for those owners of multi-million dollar properties! Try understanding these things before accusing others of not knowing how they work.