How Jim Gibson turned a cheap 50 million dollar high school into an expensive 100 million dollar high school

The three rational school board members were ready to build the high school first right after Prop O passed. They selected the last cheap level 50 acre site in the district--the Kawano site behind Strawberry Hill but in order to purchase that CHEAP level land California State law REQUIRED four trustees to support the purchase.

Jim Gibson, of Carrie Prejean Day Fame, and his crony in taxpayer money waste, Dr. Stephen Guffanti, rejected all attempts to get them to support the CHEAP LEVEL Site. Had they agreed to vote for that site the high school would have been started in 2002 and finished by 2004 or 2005 at the latest.

It was estimated to cost 50 million dollars had it been started in 2002. That's right. HALF of the cost of the current but secondary site that Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti forced the district to build on. Today we have a late and expensive 100 million dollar high school. In 2002 we could have had a cheap and quickly built 50 million dollar high school on the CHEAP, LEVEL, FULLY GRADED Kawano site.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_efa639a2-178f-5d28-b828-013f70909c1b.html

"The school board will vote Thursday on a contract amendment that would push the cost of the Mission Vista High School's campus to more than $95 million. That's nearly double the $50 million the school was expected to cost in 2002"

Think about it! 50 million dollars! Get your heads around that colossal waste. As far as I can determine it is the largest waste of taxpayer money in the history of VUSD.

With 50 million dollars more, we can only speculate on how much nicer all the other new schools built with Prop O money and the new high school could have been.

50 MILLION DOLLARS burned up and thrown away! Blame JIM GIBSON, the last of the hate filled ANTI public education trustees left on our board. He is up for re-election 13 months from now. Hopefully the VUSD community will retire him as we did his co-conspirator in massive taxpayer waste, Dr. Stephen Guffanti, in last November's election.

For those who have forgotten Jim Gibson ran his 2002 re-election campaign AGAINST the cheap level site. He posted numerous (inaccurate) signs all over town saying STOP THE 10,000 car mega high school. The high school he was talking about was the one we could have built on the CHEAP, LEVEL FULLY GRADED 50 acre Kawano site that could have opened in 2005 at the latest. He never told taxpayers that the cost of stopping the high school was going to be 50 million dollars.

He still has not apologized to the taxpayers of VUSD or to the high school students from 2005-2009 that had to remain in OVERCROWDED high schools.

So Jim Gibson, when will you apologize to the taxpayers and high school students of VUSD?