School facilities should be top of mind for the City Council.
It’s a key community quality of life issue
It’s unfortunate that the city and the school district often don’t seem to have each other’s backs, as it were, in long-term planning. More often, it seems like they’re working at cross purposes when Gilroyans would be better served if they would work together.
A case in point is the city’s process for approving housing developments. New housing units have a huge impact on schools, but the school impact fee, which is limited by state law, is woefully inadequate.
The city awards permits to projects without any input from school district officials who are then left holding the bag, trying to figure out how to build facilities for new students living in the new homes, but without sufficient land or funds to meet the mandate.
Then, when district officials approach the city for help in making ends meet – as in the case with a recent request for housing permits to be attached to the Las Animas Elementary School site, which the district wants to sell – instead of cooperation, district officials were greeted with a lecture.
How is it that city officials who are perfectly comfortable approving a $27 million new police station don’t have compassion or understanding for the school district’s predicament? Don’t they seen the connection between school facilities and the quality of life in our community?
What’s needed is a school facilities summit where city officials sit down with district officials and jointly work on long-term planning.
Certainly there are examples of cities and school districts that are using creative means to solve this California dilemma. Public schools are built by private developers in new subdivisions all over the state – Bay Area examples like Pleasanton and Walnut Creek spring to mind.
How have they managed to achieve that, and what can Gilroy do to make this a reality?
The city should be using all its tools – from the Residential Development Ordinance to the permit process – to make sure that GUSD has sufficient land and funds to educate the children who will live in new developments.
The children who live in these developments are Gilroy’s children. Making sure the school district can educate them – the responsibility of GUSD – is just as important as making sure they have sewers and roads – the responsibility of the city.
Even though there’s a division of responsibility between the two agencies doesn’t mean that they can’t become partners in managing the city’s growth. For the sake of all of Gilroy’s children and for the betterment of our community, that’s exactly what they must become.
Petty differences should be dissolved in a quest for the greater good. Quality school facilities should be at the top of every city councilman’s list.
