On Tuesday, November 8th (Election Day!) the School Board meets for a 4:45 early meeting at the School District Headquarters (4034 Irving Place). The agenda will include:
- A discussion about a no-bid contract issued by the school board to an architecture firm for approximately $400,000 to design the new sports complex. School district attorneys have written a legal memo outlining their views on the issue (see website below). Come Tuesday night to let the school board know whether they should be issuing large contracts without public bidding.
- A presentation from the Anti-Bullying Task Force on the work that they have been doing throughout the district to address bullying issues. Are you satisfied with the level of programs and the focus? Do you have ideas for how the district can better protect students? Should funding these programs be a priority during tough economic times?
- A proposal will be made by parents and other members of the community to open up the capital improvement project process for more stakeholder involvement. Among their many suggestions is creating a list of criteria based on which all decisions will be made and the setting up of a task force to work closely with the experts on prioritizing funding for the Robert Frost Auditorium. If you support a more open process and have ideas for how we can ensure that the voices of all stakeholder groups (including students) will be heard, come and support these community members
For the entire agenda and reference materials, please see: http://www.ccusd.org/ourpages/boe//994%202011-12%20(Current)/001%20Agenda/001%20English/2011-11-08.pdf
I was not able to attend this meeting, but I do recall seeing an article (or board meeting minutes?) that, per Patti Jaffe, one of the reasons the architecture firm was chosen was because the city had done business with them before. I couldn't find any information on the internet about this association; are there any records to support this assertion?
ReplyDeleteHi Susan,
ReplyDeleteThe reason given for hiring this firm without any request for proposal or public bidding is that the district has used them in the past for 2 unrelated projects. Since the attorney was not at the meeting, this item was postponed until the next meeting (November 22nd) so that this and other questions can be answered.