The Piedmont Unified School District is considering placing a bond measure on a future ballot to cover the cost of renovating and improving the Allan Harvey Theater (AHT) at Piedmont High School.  The following is excerpted information being considered by the School Board at their meeting September 25, 7:30 p.m. in the Piedmont Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue.  The meeting will be broadcast.

“As reported by Ruth Allhaydoian [financial consultant] at the Board of Education meeting on September 11, 2013, the District’s capacity to issue new bonds is growing, as existing bonds are paid down and the local tax base grows. Currently, the District has bonding capacity of in excess of $11 million. Conservative estimates project the bonding
capacity to exceed $14 million in the 2014/15 fiscal year. Based on this report, the voters could authorize the use of bond funds to pay for an AHT project.”

“Although the project would likely qualify for additional State matching funds, receipt of that funding would depend on another State school facilities bond, and the timing of the next State-wide school facilities bond is uncertain.”

Gauging Public Support & Election Options

“The District could present a ballot measure to voters as early as February 2014 (included as part of the existing scheduled election of City Council and School Board members) with little or no additional election costs. The deadline to get a measure on the ballot is October 14, 2014. This allows little time to resolve important outstanding questions such as reliable cost estimate and community support. The District could present a ballot measure to voters at the regularly scheduled elections in either June or November of 2014 without the cost of a Special Election. Special elections are estimated to cost $80,000- $100,000 while joining an already scheduled election costs in the $20,000 range, depending on the number of issues on the ballot.”

Staff Recommendation: “The Board is requested to provide direction to staff as to next steps. Community members have expressed an interest in pursuing the preliminary design as presented to the Board in January of this year.”

Click to read the staff report in the September 25 Board packet and go to page 8.

Since January, the City Council has been in negotiations with Piedmont Recreational Facilities Organization (PRFO) to receive payment of the outstanding reimbursement obligation in connection with PRFO’s proposed Blair Park sports complex. 

The press release states in part:

In the settlement agreement, PRFO has agreed to let the City retain the $95,000 balance in a separate $125,000 Indemnification Guarantee fund, after a $30,000 settlement negotiated by PRFO attorneys in defending the City in the lawsuit filed by Friends of Moraga Canyon challenging the proposed project. The $95,000, coupled with the initial deposit of $118,000, brings the total to $213,000 paid by PRFO towards the City’s stated total incurred costs of $326,533, leaving a balance of $113,533 to be absorbed by the City.

Click to read the entire settlement agreement and press release.

– Budget Advisory Committee Member Tim Rood Announces Candidacy for Piedmont City Council – There are now three candidates running for three Council seats in the February 2014 Municipal Election. 

Tim Rood

The following is a press release from Tim Rood:

Budget Advisory & Financial Planning Committee (BAFPC) member Tim Rood has announced his candidacy for Piedmont City Council in the February 4, 2014 election. Rood has been endorsed by all of his colleagues on the BAFPC: Chair Bill Hosler, Mary Geong, Steve Hollis and Tom Lehrkind. The BAFPC was established by the Council in 2012 to assist the Council with recommendations on financial planning, forecasting and budgeting. Rood and the other BAFPC members were appointed for a three-year term.

“Tim is very knowledgeable of the City’s budget and overall financial position and the fiscal issues facing the council,” said BAFPC Chair Bill Hosler. “As a committee member, he’s demonstrated his openmindedness, his analytical approach, and his commitment to responsibly maintaining our high-quality City services and facilities.”

BAFPC member Steve Hollis agreed. “Working closely with Tim on the Budget Advisory & Financial  Planning Committee over the past two years, I’ve been impressed by his grasp of fiscal issues, his collaborative approach, and his commitment to saving taxpayer dollars while keeping Piedmont a great place to live. Tim will bring an informed and fresh perspective to our Council’s deliberations,” said Hollis, who, like Hosler, served on the 2011 Municipal Tax Review Committee (MTRC).

“I’m honored to have been endorsed by all of my Budget Advisory & Financial Planning Committee colleagues,” Rood stated. “Piedmont is such a wonderful place to live thanks in large part to the dedication and effort of our citizens. It’s been a privilege to represent Piedmonters on the BAFPC for the past two years, collaborating to explore ways to save the City money and address future liabilities, while responsibly maintaining our civic assets. As a Council member, I will bring my in-depth knowledge of City finances, as well as my professional experience as a city planner, consulting to dozens of municipalities and leading community outreach processes to find consensus on difficult issues. I look forward to working with the incoming City Administrator and other staff to implement the BAFPC’s money-saving recommendations, including refinancing the pension side fund, restarting the phased rehabilitation of the City’s sanitary sewers, and addressing the projected deficit in the sewer fund.”

A daily bicycle commuter, Rood has been an enthusiastic advocate for the City’s recent bicycle/pedestrian master plan. He established and leads the Green Transportation interest group as a co-chair of Piedmont Connect, a local volunteer environmental organization. For the past two years, Piedmont Connect has sponsored an “Energizer Station” at Ace Hardware as part of Bike to Work Day in Piedmont, in which Mayor Chiang, Council Members Garrett Keating and Margaret Fujioka and Rood have all participated.

Rood’s campaign steering committee includes Council member Garrett Keating; former mayor Al Peters, a member of the Task Force on Civic Governance appointed by the League of Women Voters of Piedmont; former Council member Walter Schey; former Planning Commissioner Melanie Robertson; MTRC members Michael Rancer and Eric Lindquist; Kathleen Quenneville, also a member of the ask Force on Civic Governance; and a diverse group of current and former parents of Piedmont schoolchildren, including former parents Diane Allen, Denise Bostrom, and Hingman Chan; PMS and PHS parents Bill and Tina Bocheff; Beach and PMS parent Jim Mitchell, and Wildwood parent Judy Richardson.

In addition to the BAFPC members and his campaign committee, Rood’s other endorsers include School Board President Rick Raushenbush, Recreation Commission Chair Nick Levinson, former mayor Nancy McEnroe, and Capital Improvement Program Committee member Ryan Gilbert, who was also a member of the 2011 Municipal Tax Review Committee.

Tim Rood has been a Piedmont resident since 2002 and has been an active local volunteer throughout that time. He and his wife Muffy have two children who attended Wildwood from kindergarten and are now at Piedmont Middle School and Piedmont High School. His community service includes six years on the board of the Piedmont Swim Club, serving as a precinct captain in the 2013 school parcel tax campaign, and volunteering with the League of Women Voters of Piedmont to register voters at the Piedmont Harvest Festival. He also volunteers as treasurer of Human Impact Partners, an Oakland-based 501(c) 3 non-profit organization.

A certified city planner and licensed architect, Rood has led multi-disciplinary consulting teams and public outreach processes for numerous cities, including Oakland, Martinez, San Rafael and Healdsburg, and holds a LEED accreditation in green neighborhood design. He holds a bachelor’s degree cum laude from Columbia University and masters’ degrees in architecture and city planning from U.C. Berkeley. Rood is a partner in an award-winning urban design and planning firm, Community Design + Architecture (CD+A), which specializes in the design and implementation of walkable, bicycle-friendly streets and communities. The San Francisco Better Streets Plan developed by CD+A has won multiple awards.

Tim Rood welcomes any questions or thoughts on City government and can be reached at (510) 239-7663 or by email at Tim@Rood4Piedmont.com.

Tim Rood

Editors’ Note: The Piedmont Civic Association does not support or oppose candidates for public office.  The comments are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Piedmont Civic Association.  Information about candidates and their campaigns is welcomed.

The Piedmont Unified School District Budget Advisory Committee meeting will be held on Thursday, September 19 in the Conference Room in the District Office at 760 Magnolia Avenue from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. The meeting is the deadline for applications for the School Support Tax Advisory Subcommittee, which is responsible for advising the School Board Members on the voter approved 8 year School Support Parcel Tax. Those interested in being a member of the Subcommittee should be present at the Sept. 19 meeting, and have their application form with them or have provided the form to the District by 3:30 pm prior to the meeting.

The application form and an explanation of the work of the Subcommittee are available below:

California Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, who represents Piedmont in the State Assembly, will host a Town Hall meeting at the Piedmont Veterans Memorial Building on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

According to an announcement from her office, Ms. Skinner will provide updates on:

• New funding for schools, the UC system, and veterans in California’s 2013-2014 State budget

• Covered California – California’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act

• Important legislation awaiting Governor Brown’s signature.

Ms. Skinner has served as Chair of the Assembly Rules Committee and was recently appointed Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.

– Residents who are subscribers to the existing system must register for the CodeRED system to continue to receive alerts after September 16. – 

The Piedmont Police and Fire Departments are now offering Emergency Notifications through a system called CodeRED.

This new system utilizes telephone calls, email, text messages, and/or a mobile app to notify residents of emergencies and other public safety related news. Residents who register for the City’s CodeRED emergency notification system will receive notices regarding public safety situations, major street closures, planned power outages, and other emergency situations at the same time information is sent to the press.

The City of Piedmont provides this service to residents at no charge. Residents are encouraged to visit the City’s web site at http://www.ci.piedmont.ca.us and click on the CodeRED Emergency Notifications item for a link to register. Registration is simple. All you need is your name, address, and phone number. Residents who do not have access to the internet may call Barbara MacLean at the Piedmont Fire Department at (510) 420-3028.

The CodeRED alert system will be launched with a City wide notification. The City will conduct a test alert using a telephone voice recorded message. This message will provide our residents with information regarding CodeRED, and instructions on how to register to receive emergency alerts.

The City’s existing Public Safety Dispatches email notifications will be discontinued on September 16, 2013. Residents who are subscribed to the existing system must register for the CodeRED system to continue to receive alerts.

This information is provided by the City of Piedmont.

The following is a press release from Jeff Wieler:

Jeff Wieler announces his candidacy for the February 2014  City Council Election:

I am pleased to be seeking reelection to the Piedmont City Council. I love living in Piedmont and I’m passionate about helping the city continue to be the wonderful community it is. I’ve put that passion to work over the past two decades as a community volunteer, serving on a wide array of civic committees and commissions, including the Civil Service Commission, Municipal Tax Committee, Ad Hoc Library Committee, Civic Center Committee, and Park Commission. I’ve also been proud to represent Piedmont on the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency.

As a member of the City Council, I have been deeply engaged in all aspects of the council’s decision-making, with a particular focus on responsible financial management. This reflects both my professional experience – I have a XX-year career in finance and an MBA from Harvard Business School – and my personal belief that there is no more serious duty for an elected official than careful, prudent management of public finances. This is especially true in the current economic environment, and I look forward to helping the city remain on strong fiscal footing.

I’m proud to be supported by a supermajority of the members of the Budget Advisory Committee. I’d also note that the recently retired city finance director Mark Bichsel has called me “one of the most productive Council members and volunteers that Piedmont has ever had. Jeff …would take a problem, shake it, and come up with a creative solution.” I fully intend to continue shaking the problems – and opportunities – that Piedmont will face in the next four years and finding creative ways to keep our city great.

Our city will have a new City Administrator shortly after the election; three department heads and a number of important middle-management employees are close to retirement age. I believe that my long experience in the community and at City Hall can help provide continuity and institutional memory during this time of transition.

I am honored to be supported by Mayor John Chiang and former mayors Michael Bruck, Valerie Matzger, Patty White, Susan Hill, Katy Foulkes, Abe Friedman, and Skip Rhodes. If re-elected, I promise to maintain an open mind, listening to all points of view, recognizing valid points and working to incorporating those ideas into public policy.

I would be happy to answer any questions and to hear what Piedmonters want to see the Council achieve in the next four years. I can be reached at: 420 – 3040, or by email at JSWieler@yahoo.com. You can also go to my website: www.Jeff4Piedmont.com.

Editors’ Note: The Piedmont Civic Association does not support or oppose candidates for public office.  PCA welcomes information about candidates and their campaigns.

Letter to the Piedmont City Council,

I was distressed to read in the Piedmont Post a front page story which discussed the long standing PRFO payment dispute and stated that the Post apparently agreed with some unidentified person who had “correctly pointed out” that the PRFO should not be expected to reimburse the City for the City’s outside legal and technical experts’ costs which allegedly “duplicated” similar efforts already provided by the PRFO.

Never mind that there is no such restriction in the Indemnification Agreement which was negotiated and entered into in secret, even more troubling is the notion that the Post apparently believes that the City should have just accepted what the project proponents asserted and should not have done their own due diligence.  In other words, government for sale to project supporters?  Approving a hotly contested project is a governmental function, and not something that can or should be sold to the highest bidder.

Regardless of whether Councilman McBain believes that 3000 residents wanted the Park, that doesn’t give the Council the right to abrogate its fiduciary obligation to all of the City’s citizens – yes, that’s right, Councilman McBain, even those who don’t agree with you – to independently perform whatever analysis was needed to be done to independently allow the Council to come to the conclusion that the Council was being called upon to make regarding the approval of the project and its EIR.

We know from the construction documents (eg, City/PRFO lease) that were prepared by the project proponents that they contained serious oversights (illegal under contractor’s licensing law, no bond required by PRFO (as opposed to Webcor) so the City was financially exposed, etc).

On what possible basis can anyone argue that the City should not have performed its own independent analysis which was required to discharge its governmental functions, including basically gutting the City’s own General Plan through exceptions for this project.

I am hoping that the Council does not buy into the Post’s apparent “editorial” position that the City should have just accepted everything that the project proponents said, and should forget about the prominent campaign slogan that the park was a gift.  A gift to who?  To the project proponents?  Certainly not to the City under present circumstances, as the Council is apparently unwilling to enforce the agreement it entered into, and now according to the Post is apparently contemplating compromising its responsibilities to all of its citizens to act impartially and independently when discharging its duties.

Rob Hendrickson, Piedmont Resident

Editors’ Note:  The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Piedmont Civic Association. 

– Ambassador Christopher Stevens’ service to the United States embodies the PHS motto, “Achieve the Honorable.” –

On September 11, 2013, at 7:00pm in the Piedmont City Hall Chambers, the Piedmont Unified School District Board of Education remembered and celebrated the life of J. Christopher Stevens, former U.S. Ambassador to Libya and Piedmont High School graduate, Class of 1978.

In honor of Ambassador Stevens’ service to the United States of America, the Board of Education named the Piedmont High School Library, the Ambassador Christopher Stevens Memorial Library.

The Piedmont Unified School District scheduled the following activities to commemorate Ambassador Stevens’ life and contribution to our country. The Board was honored to have members of his family in attendance at their meeting.

September 11, 2013 – “A Moment of Silence” was held during Piedmont High School’s morning announcements in remembrance of Chris Stevens, US Ambassador to Libya and PHS graduate, Class of 1978, and for the September 11th National Day of Service and Remembrance, the naming of the Piedmont High School library the Ambassador Christopher Stevens Memorial Library by the Piedmont Unified School District Board of Education.

September 13, 2013 – During the Piedmont High School Varsity Football Game, a special half-time commemoration of Ambassador Stevens’ service will be held, announcing the Ambassador Christopher Stevens Memorial Library and holding a moment of silence in his honor.

September 17, 2013 – “Constitution Day” – In celebration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution students at Piedmont High School and Millennium High School will participate in activities that commemorate Ambassador Stevens, including writing commitments to the statement “What will you do to improve the community?” The Social Science teachers will share with students the biography of Ambassador Stevens’ service and discuss its relevance to current world events. Purple bracelets will be available for students that read “Remembering Chris Stevens Class of 1978.”

Ambassador Stevens is remembered at Piedmont High School as a former editor of the award-winning Piedmont High School newspaper, The Highlander. He was an outstanding student, active in the PHS Model United Nations Club, as well as active in the AFS Intercultural Programs Club. In the 1978 Piedmont High School Yearbook his quote was, “What a bore it is, waking up in the morning always the same person. I wish I were unflinching and empathetic and had big eyebrows and a Message for the Age.”

Piedmont Unified School District 

– Public Program Presented by Piedmont League of Women Voters –

Dr. Michael Hanemann, professor of environmental and resource economics at Arizona State University and UC Berkeley, will discuss California water issues  at a Piedmont League of Women Voters event on Monday, September 23, beginning at 7 pm, at 40 Highland Ave., Piedmont.

An economist who specializes in the economics of water and the environment, Dr. Hanemann will focus on agricultural uses of water in California and problems with the current system of water pricing and allocations.  He will discuss the history of agricultural water policy in California, the issues of changing supply and demand, the impacts of climate change on water use, and proposals for keeping water supplies viable in the future.

The meeting is free and open to the public.