There is no win-win here unless the children living around this site will benefit. This is a big lose-lose if the district throws away bond money and places BCS here that can't serve local children unless they are granted a spot through the lottery for Kindergarten. More importantly, they will likely be taken to court by the current owners as they push for eminent domain and will spend more tax dollars on lawyers and court costs. The authors of this opinion piece will support anything that the LASD trustees do including wasteful spending. Funny how they neglect to mention how expensive this will be to tax payers. So corrupt.

Nancy Morimoto's Greater San Antonio Neighborhood Association is a sham neighborhood organization that never has meetings or board elections in direct violation of the association's bylaws. Don't believe me? Just ask her for the meeting minutes and elections results that prove otherwise. How can some one who engages in something so wrong with a neighborhood association make claims for what is right for the same neighborhood? She's just another shill for the Los Altos School Board.

The previous negative comment is NOT from Charles Bransi, another resident of the crossings. I may have different opinion that Nancy Morimoto, but she is a volunteer and resident that works in what she believe is best. She does volunteer for LASD, and I believe that this is a good thing to help her school. I believe many residents of the crossings think that a park/school on the corner of California and Pacchetti is a good thing because they are fearful of the 640 apartments complex. However, I (and others) disagree for multiple reasons.
First, I believe the eminent domain will fail because the price of the land would be closer to 250 millions. Although the land seems empty, and the district believes it can only pay for the land, there is actually a contract on that land. The district needs to provide the money for the land AND the money for the contract. The contract can be evaluated at 150 millions with a simple back of the envelope calculation. Assuming $1000/month would go to land owner * 640 apartment * 12 months = 7.68 million/year. The Present value at 5% interest rate is 150 million. So, the land (100 million + revenue generated by the land 150 million) means a price tag around 250 millions for the eminent domain to work.
So, we are going to waste huge amount of money, 4 years to finally get a price tag too high for the eminent domain to work. We would loose opportunities to use the 23 million in park fund to build a nice park in the San Antonio area, and we would loose the opportunity to improve our schools.
Second, the site has multiple issues and doesn't pass the Board of education guidelines for a school site. We would get a sub-par site, and this would add fire to the fight in the district. LASD has actually declining enrollment, and has a policy to accept too many out of district kids. It is my belief that around 250 to 500 kids in our district are from other districts. We are paying for it. If LASD and BCS would work together, the tax payer could save an entire school in population !!
Finally, getting a sub-par site could generate unintended consequences to the district. Since no one wants to go to the sub-par site on their own, it means people would fight. Remember last time there was a fight from an ill-advised school board, it created BCS. In this case, I would not be surprised we could petition for a new charter school. Or BCS would grow to 1400 students. Who knows what would happens !! The best way to protect what LASD parents really want (keep the current neighborhood school) is to work ALL together. LASD should work with BCS (keep cap on enrollment), remove out of district kids, and modernize the current site.
Finally, the Greystar project may have issues (like not enough parking) but these problem scan be solved with the City of Mountain View help. It is my belief that a nice project like Greystar would enhance the value of the neighborhood the same way the San Antonio center is improving the neighborhood.
For the resident of the crossings, the best strategy is to look at the overall picture of the San Antonio area. They should welcome really nice project like Greystar and fight the uglier projects. They should lobby for a big park in the San Antonio Center, and work with Federal realty.

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Yes, taking this land is a mistake. Yes, the district is misleading the public about the true cost, claiming it's almost free land. In reality, $50 Million is a more fair guess at the cost, depending on the outcome of legal actions which could increase this. Yes, LASD has intentionally misled the public about the size of the park amenities that could be supported. There's not room for more than one field, and that will need to be quite small and close in to the buildings and paved areas. That's not what they told youth sports supporters.

But then the committee that they are talking about to allegedly examine evidence about the use of the site for a local neighborhood school is stacked. It has too many representatives from other areas of the district that don't have the best interest of the overall San Antonio area. LASD is setting this up to saddle the San Antonio area with an inferior school, because it will protect the other school sites in Los Altos in their minds. The area hasn't seen any real growth over the last 10 years, but the 400-450 elementary students are used to pad out the enrollments at 3 different Los Altos schools which otherwise would need to close. LASD just can't afford to operate any more schools with under 400 students. Without these San Antonio area kids, the only LASD school well above 400 would be Springer, which would be 500.

LASD has a conflict because they DO NOT need a new school. It would upset the apple cart to create a local school for the San Antonio neighborhood. Every school but Springer has a stake in this. The San Antonio kids only attend 3 schools, but those schools provide enrollment numbers that keep the district-wide elementary school average size up around 480. Loyola, Oak and Gardner Bullis are all 400 or below. If San Antonio kids get their own school, then the other 3 schools (besides Springer) would also be around 400 students.

The numbers tell the story. The conclusion of the committee is foregone. You have 1/8 of the district sacrificed for the benefit of the other 7/8. "Balance" on the committee is a farce.

Then consider the San Antonio area itself. Arguably The Crossings has special treatment because Covington is the district's only school with almost all permanent buildings. The others are 40% portable buildings typically. Covington is 16 acres of land with resident district-wide staff like art, music, math, and special ed teachers. It is located next to a pristine 6 acre city of Los Altos park. So naturally, LASD proposes that the only representation on this stacked committee for the San Antonio area decision (?) will come from the area served by Covington. The West side of San Antonio Road is completely to be ignored. So is the area near Ortega where 150 kids from various apartments attend Almond ELementary. It's a sham!

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Consider this decision about cramming the 1000 student charter school into a small sized LASD elementary school campus. The rest are all 10 acres or more. S00 is the average school size, but half are 400 or less. I think anyone should take issue with the LASD effort to marginalize BCS by over stuffing this proposed new 8.5 acre school site which is supposed to be shared with the city park. The current charter school is split into 2 locations. One is in South Los Altos near Grant Road. One is at Egan Jr High which is very near the proposed new location. At Egan, Bullis has 8 acres of land for 600 students. It's already the tightest squeeze of any of the LASD elementary schools, but of course Bullis is a K-8 achool. 105 students each in K-4, split between both sites. My understanding is that the Egan site has all the 5-8 grade students, their "middle school" component.

So, it inconveniences Bullis to have everyone on one site? I don't think so. I think the issue is that spreading the students out across more site area is needed. Perhaps a fair option would be to keep the site at Egan (rather than turning it into extra open space there, a local park if you will). Then also ADD for Bullis the site at California Avenue. That would be more convenient for the school, to split the 2 locations by only 1/4 mile of distance. Right now it's 5 miles away to drive between their 2 sites.

But also, it would lessen the impact on the neighborhood around the new place. Cramming in 1000 students by that new park and The Crossings is out of perspective. Use the site as a local school for the area, sized at 450 students. Use it as 1 of 2 spots for the Charter, with 500 students or so at each.

Or, open the school for San Antonio where 2/3 of Bullis is now, without spending $250 Million on land. Reduce Covington down to a 300 student school (without the San Antonio kids). Construct on the Covington land new buildings so that that site could server 300 LASD students and 1000 Bullis students. It's 20 acres of land
and park there.

What's wrong with that? Too inexpensive?

“It would upset the apple cart to create a local school for the San Antonio neighborhood. Every school but Springer has a stake in this. The San Antonio kids only attend 3 schools, but those schools provide enrollment numbers that keep the district-wide elementary school average size up around 480. Loyola, Oak and Gardner Bullis are all 400 or below.”

Nice of you to validate our standing as “filler” to meet the needs of other schools.

Guess what... our kids are JUST as valuable as yours and just as worthy of their own space.

"Transferable development rights" to the detriment of other neighborhoods to buy property for a charter school of 900 or more students - almost none of whom will be from the San Antonio neighborhood. That would be a "win-win" for the likes of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

There is an organization that represents The Crossings residents, named "Greater San Antonio Community Association." It has specifically told the Mountain View city council and the Los Altos School District that The Crossings does not need to see a local neighborhood school. They think having the charter school there would be fine. It's not clear if this really represents the feelings of The Crossings overall. It would be good if some of the HOA's in the various groupings of homes in The Crossings took their own poll and made their feelings known. Otherwise, the GCSA has spoken out on queue when requested by LASD, and they back NOT having a local school.

@BadSide..that is exactly everyone's point. Students living near this site should have their OWN neighborhood school. LASD has assigned the students north of EC to Covington, Santa Rita, etc etc and does not provide any type of transportation to them. It is a nice bonus that these students who do not have a "neighborhood school" as often touted as a necessity by LASD supporters, just happen to drive across town to pad empty seats that have been left unfilled by district students who attend BCS instead. The reason why LASD does not want to provide a neighborhood school at this site is because the students would then leave empty seats behind in Covington, Santa Rita, etc etc and that would not be good, coupled with those empty seats already left behind by BCS students too who still pay school taxes to LASD! It's expensive to run an elementary school and what to do if the district can't justify the existence of these schools with even lower enrollment. Enrollment growth was really code for the BCS problem on Measure N language. This is a perfect way to deal with BCS problem. Split the Charter between this site and Egan or wherever. Or jam 900 kids there. Whatever. A very expensive way to deal with the BCS problem but still leaves the students who live locally to this site without their own neighborhood school. Very sad.

I think the long term consequence of what the LASD district seems to be contemplating is mainly the physical building of an extra large school building of multiple stories with associated teacher parking. To serve 1000 students on that site is a marked change from the district practice. They are saying they don't want to double up the 16 acre Covington site with 2 schools, but then they are talking about permanently constructing 2 schools worth of building on this small plot of ground. This will affect that neighborhood forever because it will bestow on them a super concentrated school that is inferior to every other public elementary school around.

Now, you might justify that if this was a consistently dense area for miles around. But just on the other side of San Antonio Road, still in Mountain View and in Monroe Park (Palo Alto area on this side of the creek, part of LASD) the density is way different. Even on Del Medio Avenue in Mountain View you find a much less dense area than what is planned at San Antonio Center with its future housing. The zoning doesn't permit Del Medio to have 5 story buildings in the future, let alone 6 or 7 as might happen at San Antonio Center in 5 years.

So, given that the intensity is over such a limited geographic area, why place a school smack dab in the middle of that intensity. Just locate the school elsewhere within the same attendance area, and serve the whole area from a typical style of school. So don't build 3 story buildings with underground parking. Did you know
that every LASD school of 500 kids has a teacher parking lot and drop off area covering over 1 acre? Some have more (e.g. Covington).

So, LASD could buy land around Del Medio, or it could use existing land at Egan. Building a school to serve some of the area is enough. Long term, the rest of LASD is lacking students to keep schools open. That argues against cramming more students than standard onto this one new piece of land, directly across from the 6 story busy San Antonio Center development.

Man. I am so sick and tired of the tone of this topic. I've lived in LASD for the past 18 years and during that time there have been at lease 3-4 distinct Board of Trustee regimes. An in every case, you have clowns like several of the people above accusing the BoT of incompetence, corruption, dishonesty, malfeasance, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I don't agree with every decision the BoT has made over the years, but I do believe they are generally people of integrity trying to do their best to serve the community. This is clearly a hard problem to solve and I wish the Monday Morning Quarterbacks around here would roll up their sleeves and try to make this work rather than pointing fingers and slinging mud all day. But I guess that would require them to climb out from behind their keyboards and actually do something...

@DPR:Algernatives: (1) better use existing school sites, (2) "school" children at home or in smaller venues or (3) put another bond measure on the ballot to borrow more money to buy new sites. But selling "development rights" to raise money for a "charter" school in Mountain View is not good for Mountain View. Would it be good for the Los Altos residents on the Board of Trustees ("BoT"). Sure. Bots from Los Altos - Bots from Russia. Works for some.

@Martha -- just to be clear, I don't support using a site in MV for the charter school, but I do support the sale of development rights and the partnership with the City of MV to secure a 10th site. I personally think that specific site should be used for a LASD neighborhood school for the NEC students. I also think that LASD should move 6th graders to Middle School which could create other opportunities to solve the BCS problem longer terms (ideally without totally handing over one of the other campuses). My beef is with the constant, unsubstantiated accusations leveled at the BoT which have been going on for years. Enough is enough...