»
Cunha
Middle School works on a community planning level. With the city's
large commitment to a completely revamped, expanded $18 million
library right next door, why would we relocate students who stand
to benefit most from such a resource? Similarly, construction
will begin soon on a new bike trail along Pilarcitos Creek from
Main Street to Strawflower Village, including an underpass beneath
Highway 1. There are also plans for an additional link completing
the connection down to the Coastal Trail. It's all about enhancing
the wonderful downtown that attracts and keeps so many of us here.
Don't we like bumping into each other on Main Street or while
walking from church to grab a cup of coffee? By
keeping our middle school centrally located and pedestrian-friendly
we preserve Half Moon Bay as a real town with a real, working
heart — one that caters to and appreciates tourists
without exiling local residents to the faceless sprawl of outlying
strip malls.
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Superintendent
John Bayless gave our school board a very persuasive May
2002 presentation as to how a brand new Cunha could be phased
in between 2003-2005. He also suggested that such a plan
would save CUSD money that could be spent on upgrading other district
facilities. In these times, who can refute the logic in that?
The school district doesn't maintain the playing fields it already
has (city public works and private sports clubs take care of the
fields), so how does the district propose to budget for an even
more elaborately landscaped Wavecrest campus (if ground-breaking
ever occurs)?
Similarly,
the argument that a new elementary school could be moved into
Cunha holds no water. Neither district enrollment, which
is declining, nor CUSD's severely limited budget remotely support
the addition of an additional K-5 school. With the savings that
would be accrued by revamping Cunha, however, there would be funds
left over to expand/improve our existing elementary schools. Finally,
since the district seems to have permanently cut busing, it's
imperative that the middle school remain in its current, pedestrian-friendly
location.
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This
initiative expresses the will of the people and the way in which
to make the construction of a new middle school happen —
NOW. The Cunha site far exceeds any state or over-the-hill
standard. In fact, when you compare on a students-per-acre basis,
our 17.5-acre Cunha campus ranks No. 2 among all middle schools
on the Peninsula . Most middle schools sites from Daly City to
Hillsborough, are significantly smaller. Clearly, upgraded and
expanded facilities are indicated. Architectural firms specializing
in schools do this all the time with tremendous, exciting success.
And it's within our own power to start soliciting plans and considering
options for this unique, valuable, wholly district-owned property.
»
Unlike
Wavecrest, which is many years away from approval by several key
government agencies, Cunha already exists. No wetlands
studies. No red-legged frog habitats. No expensive red-tape and
inevitable challenges. And beyond all that, it's a living demonstration
of an ethic our children understand better than many adults: reduce,
recycle and reuse. Just because we have an open space doesn't
mean we MUST build on it.
»
We
don't honor our young people by paving over some of the only blufftop
open space left in Half Moon Bay or by trading this irreplaceable
natural resources away because our new middle school has
been made a "gimme" in a development deal. We don't
teach students science or ecology by pouring concrete foundations
for their classrooms on pristine wetlands. We don't protect our
children's future by abandoning the past: historic, culturally
and geographically significant downtown core buildings such as
Cunha.
»
How
many generations of kids who were promised a new school
have now graduated? How many parents who pledged
funds to the Boys and Girls Club (stymied while waiting
on a resolution to the middle school issue) have watched
their kids out-grow the promise? How many parents of
children ages 8 and under want to consign their future
to the same fruitless wait? How many years do we remain
divided and paralyzed by the same issues, namely Wavecrest
and the new middle school it holds hostage year after
year?

By
Lisa Hinshelwood, Leslie Mccarthy, Sonja Myhre
The night Cunha's Country Store burned down we all stood
together as citizens, gape-mouthed in the hideous
glow. You could read the words on people's lips:
"I can't believe
it," people said, over and over again. "I
can't believe it."
For
more than a century, Bev's venerable wooden store nourished
us on so many levels. It was an institution that
defined our sense of neighborhood. Suddenly, in the
shadow of dancing flames, we understood our community
a little better, certainly more deeply.
We are not Daly City,
or Foster City, or Pacifica. We
are a community with a center, a heart, a working downtown
core from which all else radiates. When you start
with that simple fact, other pieces seem quickly to
fall into place.
That's why we're proposing
a citizens' initiative for next November's election.
We think it's our community's
best shot at breaking some of the political gridlock
that has paralyzed, among other things, progress toward
a new middle school.
It's
time our community focus on core values; time
to look at the big picture and how all our civic goals
-- from education to the environment to downtown commerce
to recreational facilities to traffic -- fit together.
As
citizens committed to local schools, churches, sports
teams, parks and the future of this precious place
in which we plan to raise our children, we'd like to
introduce the Build Our
School Now Initiative.
This initiative would
amend our Local Coastal Program -- the document that
governs all planning decisions within our city limits
-- to express that a "pedestrian-friendly, centrally
located downtown core is a vital civic goal for Half
Moon Bay." In other words, we
want a city that works and is integrated in our daily
lives, a town that caters to and attracts tourists --
but does not exist solely for them.
To
that end, the initiative would also express the will
of voters not to have a new school built west of Highway
1 (i.e. sprawled south of town, where the Wavecrest
plan, currently tied up more than three years by the
California Coastal Commission, would site our new middle
school).
It
would also affirm that voters desire a new and improved
middle school at the current Cunha Middle School site,
"which is conveniently located and provides
ready access to downtown doctors, dentists and other
health care providers, the Adcock Community Center,
library, playing fields and tennis courts, the skateboard
park, markets and cafes, churches, a police station
and the whole downtown Half Moon Bay community."
The city has already
invested heavily in a grant application in support of
a new $18 million two-story library to be built at the
current old library site and to include 100 new underground
parking spaces. There is
no reason that the $35 million in Measure K school bond
funds couldn't be used to preserve Cunha Middle School's
wonderful Deco architecture and build on it to
create a state-of-the art two-story school facility
whose students could also avail themselves of adjacent
library resources.
And
what of the Boys and Girls Club, which has already lost
a sizable amount of grant funding due to Wavecrest-related
delays? There are several potential sites for
a facility large enough to house a pool and gymnasium
right within walking distance of Cunha, the library
and the Adcock Center. It's a matter of initiative,
political will and creativity.
We've examined all
the alternatives, trade-offs, dreams and pragmatic possibilities
and it boils down to this: A
real, working downtown whose central jewel includes
revitalized civic institutions such as a newly revamped
and expanded Cunha Middle School makes sense on every
level. And we believe that our elected school
board officials must recognize as much.
Generations of kids
have now come and gone through the halls of Cunha Middle
School. Everyone agrees the
facility isn't what it should be and that our kids deserve
better. That's why citizens overwhelmingly supported
Measure K back in 1996, giving the CUSD school board
$35 million with which to construct a new, improved
middle school.
Where
is that school now? Like our entire community, it has
been hamstrung by the Wavecrest quagmire, whose resolution
is still years away. A proposed 279-home housing
development that is to include a Boys and Girls Club
and a new middle school to replace our current Cunha,
the project remains in limbo year after year after year.
Local politicians and the principals of Ocean Colony
Partners all have their points of view as to why this
has occurred.
And,
most of all, no common ground on which to move forward
as a united community with a vision -- a vision
that works within the constraints of our beautiful but
uniquely limited geography.
If we're really in
it "for the kids," then a consortium of parents,
coaches, school board members and educators, parks and
recreation representatives, social service organizations
and other concerned citizens
must come together and get the job done -- NOW.
We've
shown our sense of family in the outpouring of support
for Cunha's Country store, an emblem of just the sort
of lively, real, working town we believe ourselves to
be. Shouldn't that respect for tradition, community
ties , good old-fashioned ingenuity and common sense
be our guiding vision?
The arguments for
and against the Cunha Middle School site have been addressed
exhaustively in these pages. If you'd like to study
those arguments again, read the full
text of the Build
Our School Now Initiative, or volunteer
in support of our effort, please email
us or call: 712-9079.
For now the main thing
to recognize is that too much time has been wasted;
too many good intentions have been frustrated. We
need to focus on a clear, viable vision -- and stride
toward it together, as a community. Now.
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