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Mountain View residents will soon be asked how they feel about a potential bond measure for the local elementary school district, after trustees decided last Thursday to spend $21,000 to hire polling consultants.

The decision to conduct polling comes as Mountain View Whisman Elementary School District trustees prepare to approve a 10-year plan to upgrade the district’s campuses. A local architectural firm recently checked out the campuses, and estimated that full renovations could cost as much as $192 million.

Trustees said they would not approve the full $192 million in projects, but will approve some construction and expansion projects at the district’s eight campuses, which they say are overcrowded and need to be updated. The board is expected to turn to voters to help fund the projects, and trustees agreed to retain Gene Bergman & Associates to conduct a poll to find out if there is community support for a bond issue, what level of funding residents would approve and which projects interest them.

“I don’t know where I stand on the bond,” trustee Ellen Wheeler said during the meeting on Thursday, May 21. “If we are going out for the bond, we need to spend the money to see how the community feels.”

Administrators said they will soon ask the board to approve an additional $12,000 for a local political consulting company, Tramutola, to help with the polling. Tramutola has helped the district during previous campaigns, including the parcel tax election of 2008.

A few residents have been closely following discussions about the master plan and potential bond measure and have attended all recent board meetings and a community forum. At the May 21 meeting, resident Steven Nelson accused the board of not being transparent enough about their plans. He said he could find hardly any information about these issues on the district’s Web site.

“I think your staff is not doing a good job communicating,” Nelson told trustees and board members. “If you give a poll to the public, they will say they have no idea what you are doing.”

He said the board should not conduct a poll until they were more open about their plans.

Trustees and administrators said they had been advised by their consultants not to promote the bond, so the pollsters can have unbiased data. The district hopes this lack of data will help residents so they “can make a conscious decision on how they feel,” chief financial officer Craig Goldman said.

The board had originally planned to discuss a letter to parents about the master plan and bond measure at Thursday’s meeting. But administrators and board members decided to postpone this agenda item, and not send the letter out.

After a short discussion with Nelson, trustees unanimously approved the money for the polling research, agreeing it was important to get input from local residents.

“It is beyond how we are going to fund it,” trustee Fiona Walter said of the bond. “It’s about what our community members want to see from our schools.”

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  1. I think the MV Voice staff just tees these up for us to whack at for our amusement like that “highfalutin” story.

    Oh, where could I start…

    – the school district will be cutting teachers but has $21,000 to hire a pollster?

    – the school district doesn’t know how voters will react to a $192 million bond measure in the current economy? (Did they not see Schwarzenegger’s virtual waterboarding in the Prop 1a-f election?)

    – …

    Naw, this is too easy. No real challenge here. Moving on.

  2. This is going to be a hard sell. The article mentions a $192 million number a few times but says it won’t be that much. (so how much?) And if it really addresses some urgent needs, that is going to have to be made plainly clear for this to get support.

  3. The school board and district administration need to focus on innovative ways to reduce costs and save money rather than constantly appealing for higher taxes.

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