Jim Gibson wasted bond money so it does not matter

One of our ANTI friends, JustTheFacts, posted a comment at the North County Times that indicates he and his ANTI buddies feel it is unimportant that Jim Gibson was responsible for the loss of nearly 50 million dollars in increased cost for our third high school because...it is only bond money!

Our ANTI friends are so disingenuous, they post over and over that the VTA owes the district $50,ooo for something that many lawyers for many years have said was perfectly legal arrangement used to reimburse a school district for release time president. This same arrangement is being used by virtually all large districts in the state of California. Currently it is the subject of legal review. The legal matter is NOT SETTLED. When it is the VTA will gladly pay whatever it legally owes. Until then no one knows if any money is owed or not.

However when 'their boy" Jim Gibson proudly and publicly is responsible for the waste of fifty million dollars, this documented waste doesn't matter as it was "only" school bond money.

Here is my reply in blue to our ANTI friend JustTheFacts who expressed these views:
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_2be594d0-151b-5bff-813a-9e03c68254a4.html

Just the Facts is a bit disingenuous when he writes, "the cost of the third high school came from bond money which cannot, by law, be used to pay for operating expenses such as music lessons."

Perhaps he has forgotten that VUSD board was forced to borrow money with Certificates of Participation against the General Fund of VUSD to finish paying for the third high school when the money bond money ran out.

Why was it the bond money ran out Just The Facts?

Could it have had anything to do with the almost 50 million MORE dollars that the third high school cost to build at the decidedly inferior secondary site? You remember the secondary site at Melrose. It is the site that was HILLY, ungraded, expensively zoned for HOUSING, with unresolved boundary issues, AND located in the City of Oceanside whose City Council was decidedly hostile and unhelpful as VUSD tried to build a high school for the students of ONE THIRD of the City of Oceanside.

Because the bond money ran out, from now one for the next twenty or so, there will be less VUSD General Fund money for students curricular needs and employee salaries and benefits. That money will go for required COPS payments. COPS interest and principle payments are taken out first before the VUSD general fund money can be spent on the needs of students and staff.

Gee wouldn't it have been nice if the district had the almost 50 million dollars back that could have been saved if Jim Gibson had supported the cheap level fully graded primary site for the third high school?

Back in 2002 when Gibson ran his STOP the 10,000 car mega high school, he forgot to tell taxpayers he was campaigning against the last CHEAP, level, fully graded, AGRICULTURALLY zoned 50 plus acre site, entirely inside the city of Vista boundaries.

Gibson also forgot to tell the taxpayers that with his unwavering opposition to the cheap primary site, the start of construction of the new high school was delayed from the summer or fall of 2002 to late in 2006. Wouldn't it have been nice if the third high school had been finished two or three years ago?

With the almost fifty million dollars of TAXPAYER money in the VUSD bank accounts perhaps Rancho Minerva and the other new school sites could have been better landscaped. Perhaps the third high school could have a stadium. How many better could those millions of taxpayers dollars been spent than Jim Gibson's and Dr. Stephen Guffanti's expensive and pointless stubbornness.

How could a two person minority of Gibson and Guffanti have stopped the majority from purchasing the Kawano site? Because the law of the state of California required FOUR of five school board members support to acquire the cheap primary site behind Kawano's Strawberry Hill. Three reasonable board members was not enough.