Guffanti wastes 25 million taxpayer dollars!

Guffanti likes to pretend that he is against wasting taxpayer money but he really does not care. Political power, the joy of a feeling righteous, weird hatred of teachers who knows what motivates Guffanti but it certainly is not saving taxpayer money!

Today we have no third high school in VUSD and we have lost 25 million big ones all thanks to Guffanti. If we had had a rational school board member these last eight year instead of Guffanti, we now would have that new high school up and running for at least the last two years and we would have money left over form the bond issue.

The Guffanti Liars Club likes to blame the three rational board member for the delay in finishing landscaping and other finishing touches at Rancho Minerva Middle School and for the new high school not being built first and on budget. But of course they would. Guffanti (and Gibson) have caused the delays and over budget problems. With great glee, they did everything they could to sabotage bond issues before Prop O. Three bond issues down in flames with the help of their group. Finally without any help from Guffanti or Gibson we finally get a bond issue passed and start building badly needed schools.

So what do Guffanti and Gibson do? Of course they sabotage the process and throw sand in the gears. Just a great big fun game for Guffanti, but for our kids years of unnecessary overcrowding and less than ideal school situation.

How did Guffanti cost us so much money? Easy. After the district search committee looked at 19 sites in the district, the committee picked Strawberry Hill—50+ acres located BEHIND the strawberry fields. The fair market value of the land was ONE million dollars but the owner did not at that time want to sell his land. (In fact he later contributed generously to Gibson and Bradford campaigns in school board campaign of 2002. Both G and B were against the purchase.) For condemnation proceedings to occur the California Department of Education REQUIRES four of five board members to vote in favor of the proceedings.

Guess what Guffanti and Gibson did? Of course they both in lockstep REFUSED every attempt by the three rational board members to get one or the other to be the fourth vote. After months of this delay and after Bradford (but sadly not Gibson) lost in November 2002, the board lead by David Hubbard convinced Gibson to be the fourth vote for the condemnation of the current site of the dual magnet high school at highway 76 across from Home Depot. The fair market value of that site was SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. Do you remember what the cost of the strawberry hill site? That’s right ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Had Guffanti cared about tax payer money, he could have been the fourth vote for the strawberry hill site condemnation.

So he cost us SIXTEEN MILLION DOLLARS for no reason just in the difference in the cost of the sites.

(North County Times said, "Board members Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti said they refuse to support condemning the Kawano (blog editor note: owner of strawberry hill site is named Kawano) property because of existing high traffic volumes and lack of sewer service."The Strawberry Hills site is unacceptable," Gibson said. "That's not the only site out there, and there are other possible sites that they could look at." article published on Saturday, August 9, 2003 11:14 PM PDT , title of article: "Vista still searching for home of magnet high schools" written By: DAVID STERRETT)

How does that get to 25 million? Well, our district school board knowing that we would need a third high school, since both Vista and Rancho were at DOUBLE their capacity, both the full architectural drawings of a high school (with state hardship funds) at the bargain basement price of $80,000 far below what original plans would have cost. The plans were of Mission Hills High School in San Marcos.

Guffanti and Gibson accepted campaign money from the owner of Strawberry Hill (Kawano) site in the joint funds they used in the 2002 school board election where Jim Gibson and Steve Bradford were the running as the extremist duo against Carol Herrera and Letha McWey. For the last four years Guffanti and Gibson have complained about traffic problems and lack of services problems at the highway 76 site proving their opposition to strawberry hills was really based on their desire to stop a third high school from being built at ANY LOCATION.

Gibson and Guffanti INSISTED that the new high school be a dual magnet high school or he would not vote to authorize the bond (prop O). It turned out that three board members could put a bond issue on the ballot but it would need a 2/3 majority vote to pass. However a new California proposition Prop 39 allowed school bonds to passed by 55% majority if at least four of five trustees agreed. Because the three previous bonds had garnered between 61 and 65% in failing, and the district overcrowding was so great (remember year around schools?) the three rational board members went along with the Guffanti Gibson blackmail. Prop O passed by about 69% so we did not even need their votes. Too bad. Now dual magnet high schools were in the language of the bond issue.

A few hundred of thousands more dollars wasted for the UNIQUE architectural plans for a first in California dual magnet high school, $80,000 for the other plans down the drain. By the way that $80,000 was entirely out of state hardship money and did not cost our district ONE PENNY. State taxpayers still our out the money, true, but what does Guffanti care as long as new public schools are not built. We are up to 18 million that Guffanti cost our taxpayers.

The rest is just a SWAG—scientific wild a** guess. No one can say for sure but those six years of delays that Guffanti caused by not being the fourth vote for strawberry hill resulted in millions of dollars of increased construction costs for supplies and workers. Conservative estimates have to be at least a 10-20% rise in construction costs in that period. It was a time of unparalleled rise in materials due to rapid rise of transportation costs (gas and diesel) and also declining supplies particularly aggregate (for concrete) and wood. These increased costs must be at least seven to eight million dollars on a large project like a high school.

Because of the delays there is not enough money to build out the new dual magnet high schools with full set of facilitates at new high school or for that matter to finish off the facilities at Rancho Minerva Middle school. Most unbiased observers believe that was exactly what Guffanti's goal was all along. Stop building schools in Vista. Create a campaign issue for him.

Guffanti hates public education. He derogatorily calls our public schools “government schools.” Government schools is a code term for a small group of crazies who believe that government schools and government teachers are out to destroy the moral fiber of all American children. He belonged to an organization dedicated to the “destruction” of all “government” schools and only quit the organization when his membership was made public. He speaks at home school conventions where young earth creationist (6000 year old earth) also speak along with other anti government paranoid types. More will be written about this in later posts.

Additional point--one of the 19 sites investigated was the site where the North Coast Church is now building their new mega church. Interesting that all the anti-public education group including Guffanti, Gibson, Patty Anderson, Eileen Fernandez, Reed Miller and Dan Piro all attend the North Coast Church and that the property they wanted for their church was NOT chosen for the new high school site.

Interesting but apparently not a conspiracy. It turns out a natural gas pipeline runs under the site making it forbidden for a school but OK for a church.

I really wanted to start a false rumor that had true parts to it, but I just do not have enough of what Guffanti seems to have in spades. I would call what Guffanti has a kind of reverse morality, a kind of screwtape letters type of morality.

I want to our rational normal people candidates to win, but I cannot throw away my ethics. Winning at all costs is contrary to my Christian upbringing. Of course I never attended the North Coast Church. A different set of morals may be taught there. Weird that one church in town wants to control our entire school board. Shouldn't someone from Calvary Chapel, the Assembly of God or the Baptist church also be on our VUSD board?