| John Gless Letter to Boulder City Council |
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| Friday, 22 February 2008 | |
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Below is an email written by John Gless to members of the Boulder City Council, sent Feb. 18th. John is talking about a MOU ("Memorandum of Understanding: an agreement whose purpose is to enable all parties to facilitate the conduct of certain efforts of mutual interest") between the city of Boulder and BVSD. -- Dear Members of Boulder's City Council, If the MOU is extended as is and it comes into play because the existing sales contract dies, then the flaws will remain and they will continue to encumber the disposition of the Washington property. I can't begin to predict the potential consequences (positive or negative) of these encumbrances any better than I can predict whether or not the sale will happen or whether or not the community will be happy about where we are with Washington six months from now. If there is some way expiration of this MOU could affect the existing contract I would really like to know about it. Otherwise, my gut tells me that it's preferable to allow a flawed agreement to expire unless it can be modified. So I would advocate option 3, or even better, option 4 leading eventually to option 2. 2) There may not be tremendous time pressure to negotiate a revised MOU, but I think staff's characterization about no expectation for school closures in the immediate future may be a little overstated. If you look at how BVSD is allocating its construction bond money and at the district's past performance in making sudden and rash decisions with little regard for public input or properly vetted data, I can easily envision them starting to make noises about more school "consolidations" before this Council's term expires in 2009. All it would take is another one year downward blip in enrollment (as happened in 2002 prior to Washington and Mapleton being axed) combined with all the new capacity they are adding to Columbine, Foothill, and Casey to have them suddenly say that Whittier and/or Uni-Hill must be closed and Casey turned into a K-8 school or else the sky will fall because the excess capacity they just built is costing taxpayers too much and that their destratification goals are being undermined by too many seats available for open enrollment. So I would just encourage you to be on the lookout for these future developments and try to act sooner rather than later to craft agreements with BVSD before the crises hit. Above all, try to write good agreements that attempt to avoid or mitigate the kind of pain BVSD is capable of inflicting - rather than simply redistributing it, covering it up, or unwittingly making it worse. I especially like the suggestion under option 2 about having BVSD take the lead in seeking community input before selling to someone other than the city. The unintended consequence of the current MOU is that BVSD has been allowed too much leeway in dictating terms and then sitting on the sideline while the city has to do all the heavy lifting. The unfortunate, but in this case predictable, consequence for Washington School is that city government is plenty busy on its own so it tried to expedite this role as much as possible by shaving off some corners and throwing its weight behind something that lacked community support. I'm sincerely convinced that there were nothing but good intentions behind all of that, but it still left the public out of the loop and now we have all gotten an object lesson in how perilous and ultimately inefficient that can turn out to be. So I would like the next MOU to retain the city's "right to first refusal" on surplus school property, but the city should also commit itself to engaging in a public process to thoroughly explore ideas that keep public land in the public realm. If that's not possible because the public doesn't consider it a high priority, then the city should be very clear that it will use its development review powers in a way that protects neighborhoods that have lost their schools and public recreational spaces from having these losses compounded by impacts from private development beyond the minimum impact allowed by law. Refrain, in other words, from trying to trade off higher development impacts for unrelated community benefits. Other than that, the city should get out of the way and let the district navigate its own political minefields. Collaborative Policy Goals I think all of these goals are great, and I wish Council the best in pursuing them. I hope the irony is not lost on any of you that of all the schools in Boulder, there isn't one that better exemplifies every one of these six goals than Washington did while it was allowed to operate. A pessimist could therefore say that these goals look like closing the barn door after the horse has run away. An optimist would say these goals show that people and governments are capable of learning from past mistakes. It can't be ignored that Washington's closure was a huge setback for these goals, but that just makes it even more important to try harder because the underlying issues and problems remain. So I'm optimistic that Boulder can become a better place if these goals are taken to heart and backed up by effective policies and true City/BVSD collaboration... but it won't be easy. John Gless _______________________________________________ WSNA mailing list This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it http://bag.softwarewolves.com/mailman/listinfo/wsna http://www.washingtonneighborhood.org/
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