Bond Measure Would Restore Los Gatos School Building Lost To Fire

LOS GATOS, CA — Measure R, a school bond measure on the ballots in both Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, seeks funding to restore a school district's facilities that were scorched by a fire nearly three years ago. On Aug. 30, 2015, a group of teenagers went to Loma Prieta Elementary School, located at 23800 Summit Road in Los Gatos, with the intent to smoke marijuana on the premises. While the teens were there, they lit a cardboard box on fire to stay warm, a 17-year-old boy who admitted to being there that night told the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office.

The boy said he disposed of the ashes in a trashcan and thought that they were extinguished before he left. However, firefighters were called to the school at 11:10 p.m. that night and arrived to find smoke and flames coming from the school's building that was split between a gym and a community center, a Cal Fire assistant chief said the following day.

The community center portion of the building, estimated to be about 6,000 square feet, was the center of the blaze and the building itself burned to the ground, fire officials said.

Loma Prieta Elementary School and C.T. English Middle School, located nearby, were closed for a few days due to debris and air quality from the fire.

The loss of the community center and two specialized classrooms for music and art negatively affected the schools, which make up the Loma Prieta Joint Union School District.

District superintendent Corey Kidwell said funding to rebuild the damaged facilities and follow the district's 10-year facilities master plan is just now appearing on the ballot as Measure R because of the "extensive
geological study" the community center underwent in partnership with California's Division of the State Architect.

The Division of the State Architect manages building codes for California schools, and since the time that the last building code was enforced for the lost building, new fault lines have been discovered, Kidwell said.

"Our district's name is Loma Prieta," Kidwell joked. "When that's your name, building a school building is really complicated."

The district has full confidence that the new building will be built to last, since the original community center had been constructed before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and it withstood the disaster.

If the measure gets at least 55 percent approval, the $10.6 million in bonds adopted would also be used to update fire alarms and upgrade the school's water system.

Kidwell said the land the school district sits on is the only public land in the mountainous area, which means that their holding tanks are drawn on for the public's fire needs as well.

"We want to increase our capacity to both fight fires at the school and as a community," Kidwell said. "The issue of having enough water on the summit is always complex."

The remaining revenue from the bonds would help with electrical/heating and plumbing systems, meeting health/safety codes and modernizing classroom technology.

The published opponents of the measure, Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association president Mark Hinkle and Libertarian Party of Santa Clara County chair Jennifer Imhoff, question why the district is asking for more money if the district had fire insurance to cover costs from the blaze.

They said the district already spends 17 percent more than the state average and has put six parcel tax or bond measures on the ballot since 2000.

"Taxpayers have to live within their means. And so should the Loma Prieta Joint Union School District," the opponents said. "This tax-and-spend frenzy has got to end."

The proponents of Measure R, in the official rebuttal to the ballot argument against the proposal, said the district does have fire insurance but "as many homeowners know, insurance does NOT cover all the costs to rebuild."

They said Hinkle "doesn't live in our mountain community and has made it his mission to oppose every school measure on the ballot in Santa Clara County. Measure R is absolutely needed and is a sound investment for OUR community and children."

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By Bay City News Service

Photo via Cal Fire