GILROY
– Participants in the Vandal Watch Program, which has been
operating on Gilroy Unified campuses for more than 20 years, are
refusing to sign an updated contract until the future of the
program – and their homes – is secured.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Participants in the Vandal Watch Program, which has been operating on Gilroy Unified campuses for more than 20 years, are refusing to sign an updated contract until the future of the program – and their homes – is secured.
At least 11 of the 12 families who live in mobile homes and maintain surveillance over school campuses refuse to sign the updated contract because it fails to offer them assistance should they be required to leave the property. There is no stipulation of assistance under the old contract.
Lee White, assistant superintendent of administrative services, denied the program is being phased out and said the new contracts were rewritten only to update the agreement. Revisions made to the contract include changing the length of notice to vacate the property from 60 days to one year and getting the contract resigned annually. The contract was last updated in 1988.
“I’m not against the program or trying to get rid of everybody,” said Jeff Gopp, manager of maintenance and operations for GUSD. “There are changes that are happening at some of the sites … and there are a lot of options we’ve explored.”
Due to construction at various sites, such as Eliot School, some of the Vandal Watch participants will need to leave their locations within the next few years, while some will not be affected.
One of those changes will affect John and Maria Ornelas, the Vandal Watch participants at Las Animas School, which is set to be abandoned once a new school is built on a different location in 2006.
The Ornelas’ and other Vandal Watch members live on a school campus free of rent and utilities, in exchange for their vigilance. They are responsible for paying any telephone and cable bills and paying a property tax for the space they possess.
“There is nowhere in Santa Clara County to put my home,” Ornelas said of his mobile home.
After calling multiple mobile home parks in and around Gilroy, Ornelas said that none had room or were willing to house a doublewide home that is 20 years old.
Vandal Watch Program members say fears were first raised last February that the program would be canceled in its entirety when a letter, since rescinded, making that claim was sent to them by a Gilroy Unified staff member who school board President Jim Rogers refused to name.
Since then, the program participants discovered they would be left with the expenses incurred from moving their homes or finding a new place to live.
“To move (mobile homes) one mile it costs $1,000,” Ornelas said.
Rogers emphasized his desire to see the program continue.
“We have individual problem areas but I think, generally speaking, the district has gotten a lot out of the Vandal Watch Program,” he said, “and it can continue.”
Ornelas and several other Vandal Watch participants addressed the school board July 24 to request that an “exit strategy” be implemented in which the district would help compensate for moving expenses or, if the home is too old to move, for being unable to sell the home.
Steve Gorman, who lives on the Gilroy High School campus, told the trustees his home is too old to sell or move. Although he has not received a written vacate notice, expansion of the “G” building next to his home will require him to move next year, he said.
“I’ve contacted, personally, over 30 mobile home parks in this and other counties and they only want new and nearly new mobile homes,” said Gorman.
Homes must be less than five years old to be accepted by most parks, Gorman said.
One of the two participating families at South Valley Middle School, Charlie and Virginia Wysocki, will need to move next year, when they plan to retire.
“We’re here to help the school, and we’ve been here to help the school when they needed us to be,” said Virginia. “Now we ask them, ‘Be there when we need you to be.’ ”
White and Gopp said they will continue to look at options available and will meet with the Vandal Watch participants individually to find more specific solutions.
Rogers scheduled the next update and presentation of exit strategies for the school board meeting on Oct. 5.
