Minutes 05202014

Meeting minutes, May 20 22, 2014 Location and time: Almira elementary school cafeteria, 6:30 p.m.

Commissioners present: Alfonso Sanchez, Eric Paszt, Donald Brown, Diane Downing, Nancy Schuster Chairman Sanchez called the meeting to order.

Approval of Minutes: Commissioners approved the Minutes of BAC meetings on Nov. 12, 2013, February 22, 2014, and April 22, 2014

Reports: Program Progress Update 32 BAC Administrator James Darr presented the report: Because the last Progress Update was issued only a month ago, not much has changed, except a Resolution pending before the Board of Education would amend Segment 6, deleting construction of Case, Buckeye-Woodland, and the generically named Glenville elementary schools as well as demolition of Landis (which was sold), Empire, Mt. Auburn, Fulton and Audubon schools and adding demolition of deSauze, Giddings, Rockefeller, Union, Harper and the former Jamison and Willson schools.

The BAC still hopes to work with the District to work out a format for regular detailed reporting of costs for Marshall and Hayes high schools and Cleveland School of the Arts, all ongoing Segment 5 projects.

Since nothing else is new, we are calling attention to the Summer 2014 repair and improvement program and how it is financed. There is concern that the transfer of surplus Segment 4 interest earnings to the Maintenance Fund and a companion Board Resolution that amended the District’s Maintenance Plan to include virtually every school in the District, may violate terms of the Segment 4 Project Agreement with the state, which specified that such interest earnings could be used for a future construction segment or for maintenance of schools in the Project, which in this context we take to mean Segment 4. Almost none of the Summer 2014 work is for Segment 4 schools.

There is also concern that some of the Summer 2014 work authorized by the Board of Education for funding via the Maintenance Fund may not actually be maintenance but improvements or expansions that should be funded through the Permanent Improvements Fund, such as new Digital Arts High School at SuccessTech,

1

$500,000; Academic space expansion at MacArthur Girls’ Leadership Academy; $150,000; parking lot expansion at former East High, $485,000.

Also, for all Summer repair work done since 2010 and managed by the District rather than the state’s Construction Manager, there has been no accounting of what authorized work was done, who was hired to do it, and how much it actually cost. Also, as has been brought up to the District on several occasions over the last two years, there is no DBE contracting or minority/female workforce reporting on District-managed summer projects. The authorized cost of the summer projects, most of which were managed by the District, totals some $30 million since 2010.

• Gary Sautter, CMSD deputy chief for capital projects, said he would set up a meeting to discuss high school cost reporting, lack of contracting/workforce reporting on District-managed projects, funding concerns regarding the Summer 2014 work.

Web site development Commissioner Schuster presented the report: The BAC’s goal in development of its own Web site is to make it easy for the public to navigate, link to the District site, see who’s on the BAC and their background, and incorporate a lot of archival informational material. The BAC is looking for an experienced Web site developer to improve the appearance of the developing site, which has been assembled by Commissioner Brown. We would like to interview some candidates. Cost will be a factor. The site should be ready to go live soon, perhaps by June 21.

• Mr. Sautter said he will find out whom the BAC should use as a contact to set up interface between the BAC and CMSD Web sites.

Discussion: Mr. Darr recapped Master Plan Update 17 (revised), which was presented at the previous BAC meeting.

He added that the District is beginning a series of 14 community open houses to get feedback on the District’s suggestions for a revised Master Plan, compile a final proposal, and ask the Board of Education to approve it on June 24.

He noted that the BAC still lacked demographic and other data for the District’s 12-cluster planning model, which the BAC had requested at least three times since Nov. 12, 2013. The only thing that was provided to BAC was a map, copyrighted by Neighborhood Progress, which means we can’t reproduce it without permission.

Meanwhile, the Plain Dealer was supplied with cluster data published 5/19/14 on Cleveland.com.

The BAC would like to receive the requested information and the District’s Master Plan proposal as soon as possible. We would prefer that the documents be supplied in Word or Excel format, if available.

It was noted that cluster demographic data from CMSD that was published on Cleveland.com included “Max capacity” figures for elementary schools that have been built or fully renovated that in many cases are higher by more than 20 percent than those assigned to the buildings by the Ohio School Facilities Commission. In one case, however, F.D. Roosevelt, the listed capacity was 850, whereas the official OSFC capacity

2

is 1,115. The OSFC capacity figures were based on the Ohio School Design Manual, which allocates a certain number of square feet per student, depending on age and other factors. The basis for the differentials is not known.

• Chairman Sanchez said Mr. Darr should again request the Master Plan cluster information from CMSD, and should ask the District about the school-capacity differentials.

• Chairman Sanchez reaffirmed that he would like for Mr. Sautter to set up meetings to discuss the school cost, contracting/workforce, and summer repair funding issues.

• Chairman Sanchez said he would like to have the meeting minutes prepared promptly.

Public Comment: • Donna Cornett of the Larchmere Community Association mentioned that on her visits to Sunbeam, there was no water in the therapy pool. She said she would like to see Sunbeam rebuilt. The community identifies with it, she said. Referring to the so-called Skyline Campus, which also includes the closed Jesse Owens school and the former site of the demolished A.G. Bell, she said it is a nice piece of property and she doesn’t want to see CMSD just try to sell it to a developer. She said Owens is a beautiful building and it would be nice to see someone develop it into condos or as a new school. ... Commissioner Schuster noted that some items and schools will have to be locally funded with no assistance from the state.

3