BUSD to survey 400 district residents in an effort to justify Attempt #6 to build a huge high school  in  Fallbrook's Gird Valley
The Bonsall Unified School District's (BUSD) board  is split 3/2 on moving forward on yet another attempt to build a huge high school in Fallbrook's Gird Valley. Board members Timothy Coen, Erin English and Lou Riddle vote as a block in favor of building while Sylvia Tucker and Dick Olson are concerned the small district cannot afford to build a second high school after just completing one in 2016 and that the district faces strong community opposition to building a high school in Gird Valley.   

Fallbrook Union High School failed to pass a bond to fund a similar folly four times and BUSD has now failed once (Measure DD, 2016). At BUSD's board meeting in January, this split was obvious when a contract was presented to move a bond forward in 2018, Attempt #6 to build a massive 1,500-student high school in Gird Valley. 

Tucker and Olson urged the board to proceed with caution, to start by talking with district residents. As a result, the board approved a telephone survey of 400. 

So, in the next week or two, you might get a call from a pollster working on behalf of BUSD.  If you do, let them know: 
  • No bond for BUSD until it gets its financial house in order and commits to a site the community supports (clearly not one in Gird Valley)! 
  • A Walmart-sized school is in conflict with the community's wishes and local planning because the site on Gird Road is:
    • designated surplus and should be sold/traded as was previously decided
    • not supported for a high school site in Fallbrook's Community Plan
    • located in a residential area in slow-growth Fallbrook
    • zoned for no more than low-density housing (2-acre+ lots)
    • adjacent to a North County golf course/wedding/events venue just south of the Monserate Winery and vineyard
    • located within the County's San Luis Rey River Valley Park zone
Tell them: "I oppose Attempt #6 to build a Bonsall high school in Fallbrook's Gird Valley!"

We don't know what the survey questions will be yet but h ere  are the Top Ten Questions we'd LOVE a pollster to ask (but we live in the real world and it's never gonna happen!):

1) Do you feel that Bonsall Unified School District (BUSD, a district 
that has been deficit spending for six years,  should be trusted to build a Walmart-sized high school that will ultimately cost taxpayers $70 to $100+ million? 

"The District has been deficit spending since the 2011/12 fiscal year, a total of six years; this structural imbalance of revenues versus expenses ... is an unsustainable trend. ...  The multi-year projections show the District ending the 2019/20 fiscal year with an ending balance available for reserves of 0.4%, far below the legally required 3%" 
BUSD 2017 presentation. 

2) In 2012 when BUSD expanded to include a high school (unification), it skipped the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) process because it promised it would build nothing and could accommodate up to 600 high school students in its existing facilities. BUSD said:  "We do not want, nor do we need a massive brick and mortar high school ......Nor do we need fifty acres of dirt to accomplish our mission."  In 2016, BUSD borrowed millions and built a 350-student high school (in Bonsall) and attempted to pass a bond (failed Measure DD) to build another high school for 1,500 students (in Fallbrook). In February 2018, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, BUSD released, for a 45-day public comment period, a Draft Environmental Impact Report for this project, once again proposed for Gird Road. The proposed facility would be inconveniently located in the far north east corner of the district, in Fallbrook, which already has a large high school located less than 5 miles from the proposed site in Gird Valley. Does it anger you to know  that, as part of its unification process, BUSD said it did not need to build anything at all and that BUSD ignored the advice of the state and county departments of education which advised BUSD to sell the Gird Road site and, should they ever build in the future, to build within the Bonsall core area, not in Fallbrook? 

3) North County residents  killed ballot Measure DD in 2016  while working together to fight off L.A. developers circling the failed 116-acre Fallbrook Golf Course (currently being transformed into Monserate Winery and its vineyard, protected forever as agricultural land via conservation easements). In light of North County's love for Gird Valley, do you support BUSD building a Walmart-sized school facility (150,000 sq. ft of buildings, 200,000 sq. ft. of parking) right next door to the Golf Club of California, in beautiful rural and residential Gird Valley, an historical area in slow growth Fallbrook

4) Right after its loss at the ballot box (Measure DD) in November 2016, BUSD immediately signed a contract to borrow money from the school construction company (payments of $300,000 a month, 14.6% interest) to build a high school on Gird Road. A community-supported lawsuit forced them to cancel the agreement. Do you feel this was a financially unsound attempt to bypass the will of the voters?

5) The community of Fallbrook has built its own very large high school for thousands of students and passed a bond to maintain it (Measure AA $45M, 2016). Enrollment at this high school is down 20% and it has a capacity of over 4,000 students. Fallbrook's Community Plan does not support a second high school and voters have rejected attempts to build a high school in Gird Valley five times at the ballot box. In light of these facts, do you oppose BUSD's attempts to build a huge Bonsall high school n Fallbrook's Gird Valley? 

6) Many feel the community would be better served by preserving the Gird Valley site in that it is an untouched parcel with stunning views of Monserate Hill located in a residential neighborhood next door to a golf course and Live Oak Creek. Is it important to you that the site holds over 16 acres of federally-designated critical habitat for the endangered arroyo toad, is found just south of Monserate Winery's vineyard, the County's Live Oak Park, Fallbrook Land Conservancy's Gird Valley preserve and is located within the County's San Luis Rey River Valley Park area

7) The Gird Road site, acquired in 1997 for $170,000, triggers an annual State $50,000 unused school site fee ($1.7M in total penalties to the school district holding the site since the fee was established in 1984). Add in hundreds of thousands in costs for studies, legal fees and five failed bond campaigns and there is no end in sight. The Great Gird Money Pit was designated as school surplus in 2011 and could be traded for a better site, sold for millions of dollars to the County, residential developers or habitat mitigation banks.  Do you support following the  recommendation made by the County and State during BUSD's unification process in 2011 to sell the Gird Road site in Fallbrook and build when needed in a more convenient location in Bonsall's core area?

8) BUSD currently has only 328 high school students and its K-3 enrollment figures are dropping. Meanwhile Fallbrook Union High School's enrollment is down 20%. T axpayers have built and currently fund the daily operations of  32 high schools in the area, plus online and home schooling options (along with another 15 privately-funded high schools).  Ocean Breeze Farms has offered land to BUSD, no money down. The OB parcel is located adjacent to BUSD's Sullivan Campus (where BUSD's finished building a brand new state-of-the-art high tech high school for 350 in 2016). If space is needed, do you support using existing facilities at the Sullivan Campus and building classrooms as needed for BUSD students on the Ocean Breeze property located next door? 

9) Out of five BUSD board seats, three are up for election this fall (Timothy Coen, Lou Riddle and Sylvia Tucker). Board member Erin English just resigned. Do you know anyone who is considering running for the BUSD board in 2018 or are you thinking about it? 

10) Does it bother you that it took district residents over six months to get BUSD to correct its TransparentCalifornia.com salary info only to learn that controversial Superintendent Justin Cunningham (who retired in 2017 with a pension valued at 80-85% of his base pay) received $281,000 in salary and benefits in 2016 , more than the Governor of California?

That's our Top Ten. Do you have any questions to suggest? We'd like to hear them! 

If you love North County, are an advocated of slow growth who objects to school sprawl triggering urban sprawl, and are considering running for the BUSD Board in the Fall of 2018, we'd like to hear from you! 

Sincerely,

Teresa Platt
Steering Committee Member
   

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO SAVE GIRD VALLEY:  

Protect Fallbrook's rural character! Gird Valley looking south to Monserate Hill
and the San Luis Rey River Valley. April 2017
A BIG THANK YOU to everyone! Working together we can save Gird Valley! 

Thank you!
SaveGirdValley@gmail.com