HBCSD Corruption

Proof of the lie:

Claiming that the Citizen’s lawsuit brought in August 2017 “delayed” the rebuilding of North School.

(1) The Citizen's lawsuit was filed on August 14, 2017. FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF:

(2) The lawsuit was ruled on in HBCSD favor on March 12, 2018. See HBCSD Press Release: Judge Rules in Favor of Hermosa Beach City School District on North School Lawsuit.

(3) HBCSD submitted architectural plans for the rebuilt North School in January 2018. The Division of State Architects received the architectural plans for a rebuilt North School on January 12, 2018.

(4) The Division of State Architects did NOT approved HBCSD architectural plans for North School until  January 17, 2019.  HBCSD CANNOT start building until it gets approval for its architectural plans from the DSA.  HBCSD submitted architectural plans to the DSA in January 2018.  It is likely that it took longer for the DSA to approval plans for a brand-new campus than a renovated/modernized campus would have taken.

(4) City Manager, Suja Lowenthal of the City of Hermosa Beach sent a letter to HBCSD President Doug Gardner with concerns associated with the Districts approval of the Final Environmental Impact Report for North School on January 9, 2019.

"Like many others, we were surprised to learn over the holiday that the Final EIR had been released and was slated for consideration by the School Board for certification and approval the project at your January [school board] meeting. Nevertheless, our team worked quickly to review the Final EIR documents relaesed on December 28 [2018], as well as the draft Resolution, Statement of Overriding Considerations, and the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program released last week so that we could offer thoughtful and constructive comments that move this important community project forward in a timely, transparent, and collabrative manner. "

(5) The HBCSD School Board members accepted the Final Environmental Impact Report for North School in Feburary 2019.

(6) The Coastal Commission process to approve the district's plans and Final EIR extended from July 2019 to early September 2019. HBCSD can NOT start rebuilding North School without Coastal Commission sign-off on the EIR.

(7) It is believed that construction on North School commenced in September 2019 after the Coastal Commission gave their approval of District plans.

CONCLUSION: In NO WAY did the Citizen's lawsuit delay the building of North School. HBCSD School Board members had already sent the rebuilding plans to the Division of State Architects (DSA) in January 2018. The lawsuit was settled in March 2018. The DSA does NOT need to wait until after HBCSD's lawsuit with citizen's before they start the approval process of HBCSD architecural plans. The DSA did NOT grant approval for HBCSD plans to rebuild North School until a year later on January 17, 2019.

NOTE: HBCSD School Board members and Superintendent Pat Escalante KNEW that the lawsuit did NOT delay the rebuilding of North School. But they claimed that the lawsuit delayed the rebuilding of North School anyway. Why? To take the blame for the long process to rebuild North School off themselves? Don't School Board members ever take responsiblity for their own actions?

(8) School board members’ blaming the five-year waiting period to rebuild North School on the Environmental Impact Report (2017-2019) and the 2017 lawsuit is reminiscent of school board members blaming the cost of the gymnasium and new construction at Valley School in 2006 on Valley School neighborhood residents.

See Lie #41: Claiming that the lawsuit brought against HBCSD in April 2005 was the cause of the district's decision NOT to accept construction bids in May 2005.  HBCSD School Board members claimed that the lawsuit caused the delay, cost increases and elimination of two classrooms in February 2006.

BACKGROUND OF WHY THE CITIZEN'S LAWSUIT WAS BROUGHT AGAINST HBCSD:

(1) The March 2017 Notice of Preparation – Initial Study of North School, identified 48 items out of 83 total items as being Potentially Significant impacts in rebuilding North School (aka Vista School).  Therefore, school board members knew that the plan to rebuild North School would entail many complicated and time-consuming issues. 

NOTE: See letter from Miyo Prassas dated March 13, 2017 addressing the Districts Notice of Preparation Intial Study of North School 48 items out of 83 total items as being potentially significant impacts.

(2) In the summer of 2017, HBCSD School Board members evicted Children's Journey and South Bay Adult School from North School. HBCSD had been leasing North Schools main building out to Children's Journey for approxmiately $230,000/year. From 2017 to 2021 (4 years), HBCSD lost approximately $1 Million dollars by NOT renting North School out to Children's Journey.

NOTE: Approximately 80% of Children's Journey 300 clients were Hermosa Beach families. Children's Journey provided day care to young babies as well as older children from 7am to 6pm M-F.

(3) HBCSD had just started the Environmental Impact Report process in March 2017. Some Hermosa Beach residents were afraid that the reason HBCSD School Board members evicted Children's Journey and South Bay Adult School in 2017 was because they planned to immediately demolish the North School campus, before completing the Environmental Impact Report for North School and securing Coastal Commission sign-off on the project.

(4) The Hermosa Beach residents who filed the lawsuit against the district knew how much HBCSD had lied to voters prior to passing Measure S. They also knew that Decision Insite, the district's enrollment consultants, 2016 Five Year Enrollment Projections had changed enrollment projections for HBCSD from one of a 164 student increase by 2019 prior to the Measure S vote, to a 309 student decrease by 2019 after Measure S was passed by voters. On the same enrollment report, Decision Insite had also projected a decease of 408 students by 2021 (not taking into account a future Covid pandemic).

NOTE: HBCSD had plans to demolish North School and build a 510 student campus. HBCSD also had plans to expand View School with several new

buildings.

(5) On August 14, 2017, Hermosa Beach citizens using a pro bono, Harvard educated attorney filed a complaint against the District to request a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to ensure that school board members did not demolish North School prior to obtaining the sign-off for a brand-new North School campus from the Coastal Commission (July-August 2019). The complaint for Injunctive Relief spelled out the ways in which HBCSD and their attorneys had lied to the citizens of Hermosa Beach:

FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF:

II. Executive Summary.

#6. "The District, on information and belief, plans to destroy North [School campus] before an Environmental Impact Report ("EIR") can be completed, which also renders the plan illegal, at least until the EIR is finalized and the project formally approved by the District thereafter."

NOTE: Prior to the First Amended Complaint for Injunctive Relief, of August 14, 2017, interested parties had been in contact with HBCSD Superintendent Pat Escalante and HBCSD School Board members regarding their plans for North School. During the period from the passage of the bond in June 2016 to the time when the Injunction was filed, Superintendent Escalante had insisted that the District had not decided what they were going to do at North School: modernize or demolish and rebuild. However, after the injunction was filed in August 2017, HBCSD attorneys, including HBCSD attorney Terry Tao, used the excuse that the Plaintiff's cause of actions were barred by the sixty-day statute of limitations after the District had choosen a plan. Hermosa Beach citizens did not jump to the conclusion that the "plan" for North School would be to demolish and rebuild the entire campus, although all signs from the district had indicated demolition of North School.

#7. "The illegal demoliton plan would be a waste of taxpayer funds prohibited by California Code of Civil Procedure Statute 526a because the District has two other better options, both of which would cost a small fraction of the $36M that the demolitiion plan is currently expected to cost. The other options would also require less time, create fewer school-related traffic issues, and cause less environmental disruption to the sensitive coastal region."

#10. "The District has repeatedly refused to seriously entertain either of these two excellent alternatives to demoliton, and has given multitude of unsupported and/or false reasons why neither would be feasible. The controversial and deceptive Measure S passed with a mere 193 votes to spare, and only after a number of illegal and unethical practives by the District during the campaign. Plantiff should be awarded a temporary injunction [TRO] preventing the District from harming North, and requiring the District to maintain North properly, until Plantiff can prove that demolishing North would be an unwarranted waste of taxpayer funds and obtain a permanent injuncton."

See also Second Claim for Dclaratory and Injuntive Relief dated September 27, 2017.

126. "On information and belief, Defendants have already expended funds to further the demolition of North School without further public hearings, using Measure S funds that were titled, presented, advertised, and specifically described for the modernization and renovation of the North School, rather than its destruction. Demolition of North School was not specifically listed anywhere in the text of Measue S, nor was it reasonably inferable from the text of Measure S."

129. "Plaintiff further requests an injunction preventing the District from using non-Measure S funds to pay for the destruction of North School, and then expending Measure S funds to pay for the construction of a new facility to replace it, as such an interpretation would permit the District to circumvent the gross misrepresentation of the purpose of Measure S and destroy a cultural landmark that taxpayers were not adequately informed might be destroyed."

(6) Article: Suit over North School dismissed; district may seek attorney's fees by Ryan McDonald, March 2018, The Easy Reader Newspaper.

"In a decision released Monday, Judge Holly Kendig ruled that both of the claims filed by resident Blair Smith against the district were submitted too late. Although the two code sections under which the suit filed do not contain statutes of limitations, the district successfully argued that Smith's suit was a "validation action" and therefore subject to a 60-day statute of limitations. The suit, filed against the district in late August 2017, should have been submitted at the latest within two months of the February announcment of the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report for North, Kendig wrote."

NOTE: Most school districts retain an experienced and sophisticated bevy of attorneys using almost unlimited taxpayer funds. In HBCSD case, they used the large experienced legal firm of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud and Romo. It is nearly impossible for untrainned and less knowlegable citizens to go toe to toe with these attorneys. There is an inherint inequality between citizens trying to obtain truth and accountability for taxpayers from unscurpulous school districts.

(7) Article: Suit over North School dismissed; district may seek attorney's fees by Ryan McDonald, March 2018, The Easy Reader Newspaper - continued.

"Because she based her ruling on the statute of limitations issue, Kendig's opinion does not address the lengthy list of deceptions and ethical violations the suit alleged HBCSD committed in association with Measure S, a school facility bond passed by voters in June 2016 to fund the reconstruction* of North School and improvements at other district facilities. Among the complaint's allegations: that North School was deserving of consideration as a historic resource, that more economical alternatives existed to address current overcrowding**, and that the school board illegallly used district funds to aid the measure's chances of passing."

(8) According to the wording of the district’s $59M bond Measure S, school board members would determine whether or not demolition and reconstruction of North School made more sense than modernization.  Therefore, school board members should have been well aware of the need of an extensive EIR prior to deciding whether or not to demolish and rebuild North School.

The three-page long version of the FULL TEXT of BALLOT MEASURE S, page two, states that:

"Projects may also include the costs of demolition and reconstruction of existing facilities currently scheduled for modernization, if the Board of Education determines that such an approach would be more cost-effective solution.” 

(9) The Board of Education made the determination that demolishing and rebuilding North School and therefore waiting five years and spending $29M was the most cost-effective solution. 

See Lie #50: HBCSD's stated "project objectives" listed in the Environmental Impact Report do NOT match the facts or the district's plan to rebuild North School.   Several "project objectives" seem to be arbitrary and unnecessary.

NOTE: It is disingenuous for school board members, Superintendent Pat Escalante and Superintendent Jason Johnson to blame the long wait for the reconstructed North School as "unforeseeable DELAYS” and push false information out to their supporters.   Don’t HBCSD school board members EVER take responsibility for their own decisions?