The recent LBUSD Board study session to finalize the Facilities Master plan and the pool should have been a business meeting. After all, they voted to incorporate a 50-meter pool.
A new pool is desperately needed. That’s not disputed. However, there’s concern consistent with past issues. Our administration leader and several seasoned board members repeatedly demonstrate disregard for data that supports alternative, viable solutions. During discussions, they manipulate facts and data to support specific agendas and leverage their elected positions to influence the board and voting public. Finally, they fail to consider the long-term effects of short-term decisions, disregarding their community.
Pool experts hired by district leadership offered data and operation logistics, demonstrating cost-effective, solution-focused options incorporating a 35- or 40-meter pool. Sensible Laguna added data supporting additional benefits in staffing, operations, environmental impacts and training configurations based on district data and input, including comparative studies of surrounding districts and pool size to community/enrollment demographics. Based on the questions asked, the administration and board majority ignored it, so it was good to see Perry and Malczewski question it.
The administration has ignored requests for community town halls, and project parameters have shifted to meet broader needs. Their qualifying examples of surrounding districts’ 50-meter pools omit enrollment, community demographics or pool location and are all three to five times the size of Laguna’s.
School board president Jan Vickers continues positioning herself as a city spokesperson, throwing shade on the city council by insisting the city won’t build a second pool. However, the city’s Oct. 10 agenda includes a pool discussion, yet the board majority chose not to wait. With a 70/30 joint use agreement, why not?
Member Kelly, board representative to Council PTA, publicly insists our PTAs support a pool. PTA, a nonprofit with a fiduciary responsibility to its membership, wouldn’t take a position. Stating the PTA supports eliciting community or board support is a dereliction of duties. Did boardmember Kelly put the PTA’s nonprofit status in jeopardy? Is he representing his constituents? Would he have been reelected if challenged in a vote last November?
Data, logistics and needs show two pools are the ideal. It would expand services to our aging population, and an exclusive high school pool would allow equitable usage among all sports without impacting the community.
Many exciting solutions outlined by Sensible Laguna could minimize disruption to all but require a united board and community, not a divided one. Yet, division and ignoring the stakeholders seems to be the continual path the administration seeks, while our students and stakeholders pay the price well into the future.
Sheri Morgan, Laguna Beach
