The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Measure H makes sense

When Fremont Union High School District officials state that facilities needs ultimately take time and money away from programming, they are right. Just ask Pete Tawana, principal of Fremont High School. Tawana recently explained that roughly 20 percent of his day is spent placing Band-Aids on facility malfunctions at the 70-year-old school.

"I'm continually battling those issues," he said, standing in a stifling office at the school, heated to at least 80 degrees. An ancient and inefficient heating system, which burns too hot in the winter, is to blame, Tawana said, explaining that there are times when office assistants have brought fans to work in the middle of winter for reprieve.

This year, Tawana has had to set aside his academic duties to respond to several facilities catastrophes. He's shut down a classroom to have workers dig up the floor to locate a leaking underground pipe; he's supervised the clean up of 50 gallons of water that gushed over the gym floor after a drinking fountain pipe burst; he saved a circuit breaker that was being dowsed by water pouring in through an old roof.

Because of such emergencies, the cost of spot-fixing problems at Fremont is becoming more expensive than replacing the systems altogether. And Tawana is not alone--the situation is similar at each of the five high schools that will be repaired under the $144 million facility bond measure.

District officials have spent nearly two years preparing for this election, developing safeguards to ensure that taxpayers money-- $30 per $100,000 assessed value of their real estate--will be spent wisely.

A bond oversight committee will make sure that repairs identified by a group of engineers, architects, educators and students during the 1996-1997 school year will be completed, on budget and on time. District officials even have written in a provision that gives the district an extra $25 million over 25 years to maintain the repairs.

"If you're going to ask to the public to support a bond like this, you have to do your homework," the district's property management coordinator, Gene Longinetti, explained. "We feel we've done our homework."

We agree. Vote yes on Measure H on April 14.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, April 8, 1998.
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