Posted by ostrich tail feathers, a resident of the Menlo Park: Felton Gables neighborhood, on Jun 12, 2008 at 8:57 pm

"Adopting the EIR is essential before construction can start"??

Perhaps the reporter has been blindfolded before arriving at the board meeting, as the bulk of construction at Encinal, save the TERC, is well under way. Or is this just the typical blind Almanac spin?

The "Statement of Overriding Considerations" adopted by the board is a bald faced stiff arm at compliance with state environmental assessment. The TERC building should be built at O'Connor, and leave room for classroom expansion at Encinal, the largest campus (10 acres) in the district. This district is bursting at the seams and has no clue about enrollment management, let alone fiscal and environmental responsibility. At best, they're a band aid board.

This board has shown little regard for environmental sensitivity or impact on neighboring residences. Just go check out how many heritage oaks get scraped over at Oak Knoll in the next few weeks.

Glad to hear Ives is a lame duck, wish the same could be said for the arrogant Thygessen. Someone with gumption needs to run against her.

Hey, how about this "creative financing" of taxpayer indebtedness they passed last night!. Instead of paying off the Measure U $91Million bonds in 25 years as required by state law, now they want to push it out to 40 years, (do the math, calculate the additional interest costs for 40 vs. 25 years, and that's on top of the $27 Million bonds we're still paying on from 1997!!!). League of Women Voters website calculates that only about 20% of eligible voters approved of Measure U in the June 06 election, after deducting the usual tax exempt over 65 voters. That's 3600 yes votes out of 18000 eligible and "stuck" district taxpayers.

Time to get some board members with some accountability!!