Study Session Meeting

No content available.

[9] Ray Rodriguez: Board of Education, Thursday, September 5, 2019. Roll call, Ms. Aquino, if you don't mind.

[17] SPEAKER_04: President Rodriguez. Here. Vice President Martinez. Here. Member Gutierrez. Here. Member John.

[27] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Approval of the agenda.

[40] SPEAKER_36: I move that we approve the agenda.

[42] Ray Rodriguez: OK, I need a second.

[46] Elisa Martinez: I second.

[47] Ray Rodriguez: OK, before we vote, I just had a little bit of comment on this. Anyone can comment on any item that's on the agenda. And you have three minutes. You want to comment on something that's not on the agenda, then that's public comment on non-agenda items. So if, for instance, we have something on consent, a lot of times we just vote for three or four things that are on consent. As soon as we get one of these that somebody wants to speak on it, then in essence, we're pulling that item for discussion. And normally on... On personnel items, it's very rare that an item is pulled for discussion, but the community, any community member can have it pulled on anything on the agenda. We're a small school district and we're very sensitive that an item that's on personnel, even though we don't name the person, everybody knows because we're a small school district and everybody knows each other. So being sensitive of that, again, if somebody wants to talk about an item that's on the personnel, then we'll talk about it then. OK. So we have a motion and a second. Hold on. Can you vote by hand? Because I'm not even ready. OK. Motion passes four ayes. OK, so I already read the paragraph that Superintendent gave me to read. We, as a board, a few weeks ago, or a couple of months ago, voted that we would end discussion on the closure of any one of our schools. And we wanted the community to focus on ways that we can talk about increasing revenue, which is a parcel tax. And if you have part of the community, or in this case, if we don't name a school, we have the whole community, that's anxious. It doesn't bode well for us talking about going out for a bond or going out for a parcel tax. So the intent for this study session is basically to get an update on facilities. Again, the age of our buildings. My father-in-law, And a lot of the builders here 50, 45, 50 years ago helped build some of these schools. And so they're aging. And this is a good conversation to have. But the board still, unless I hear otherwise, is still very much against closing any one of our schools now. But as our numbers change, then naturally at some point We're going to have to talk about how to mediate that. OK. OK. So with that, Ms. Park, how do you want to do it? I'll wait till the end. Till the end? OK. Thank you. Thank you. OK. So, Superintendent, the bearing's on you.

[271] SPEAKER_37: Thank you, President Rodriguez, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen. I want to start with a brief opening statement that I think is important. And I want the community to realize that the board oftentimes gets dilemmas and not just problems. We have a challenge ahead of us, specifically our budget. I know that generally I don't like the idea of closing a school. I think that sometimes is very difficult to stomach, especially if there's not something new that's being offered. In tonight's kind of scenarios we're presenting, There is some conversation around that. It doesn't mean that I'm fully on board with closing the school. But I feel better about if we were to consolidate into a new building and somebody is actually getting something out of it instead of we're just closing your school and now you have to go over here. A new school might be something that's worth a conversation with the community. especially in light of what we're going to learn later in our presentation about the aging nature of our schools and roughly $800 million in need that we have, that there's no way we're going to be able to even fix that with the bond if someone were to wave a magic wand and that were to happen. But I do want to also share that the board has been very clear, but we have also been very clear and passed a resolution that we do not want to deficit spend. Deficit spending affects everything. tough thing to navigate, especially in California, knowing that we're largely still underfunding public ed in California. But I wanted just to be clear that what has changed in my mind is really the variable that is kind of starting to at least change my thinking a little bit is I would support it, especially if there's something new being offered instead of just closing a school for the sake of closing a school. So I wanted to be clear about that. And I'm going to turn it over to Barry, and he's going to start the study session.

[387] Ray Rodriguez: Before you stop, Barry, we're running, we set aside 45 minutes, which will run us to six. Is there any problem if we go over with closed session? Are we okay with closed session?

[399] SPEAKER_37: I'll check that while he starts.

[400] Ray Rodriguez: Okay. Go ahead, Barry.

[407] SPEAKER_18: Good evening. I have the privilege of presenting what our staff has taken a look at for the board to consider and for the public. My name is Barry Schimel and I have been the interim CBO for the district for another month. And so I want to say up front that this is a look from the district from a financial point of view for long term operations. I don't have a dog in the race. So I have no vested interest one way or another. And I'd like to start this evening with recognition of a school board a generation ago. Because I had the privilege last night to have my dinner about 9 o'clock reading this little booklet that I found about Newark Unified that talks about the history of the schools. And I walked away thinking that This school board, who I have no idea who they are, had vision. They had foresight. And the most important thing I noticed is that they had courage. Courage to stand up and do what was right for Newark to make it a better district. They had looked at data, not emotion, but data. And they looked at, they had two high schools and the district was going to be half of its size in 1982. And they were right. And they took foresight and put together one high school, which is a huge operational benefit for students and the community. There's no division. It's one school. Same thing happened with the junior high on a wonderful site. that is much bigger than any middle school, junior high school in the Alameda County, probably the whole state. So it's now time to kind of take a look at what's happened with the elementary schools. And you have, I believe, from the little that I've worked with you, vision. You want Newark to be independent. because you cannot operate a district with deficit spending. What happens is the state comes in, they appoint a trustee, and the board is kind of superfluous. They really don't represent the community. Having been a trustee before, it's not a real great position for the board to be in. So I'd like to move into what I'm calling facility and budget alignment. This isn't one thing. It's a series of actions over time that is going to put Newark back on the top. Some facts, your elementary schools are tired. The newest one is 55 years old, and you actually go back to 65. And candidly, the community has not invested in their schools financially. The schools are not attractive. they don't meet the needs for the next generation of the Z generation kids that were born in 2000 and later. So tonight, we're going to talk about the sheet we passed out at the board last time and gave you time to take a look at and answer any questions that you might have about that. We're going to look at enrollment data. That's facts. We've had one demographic study. You're about to have another one. You're not making any decision on enrollment tonight. We're just discussing. And we're looking out five years, because that's pretty solid data, but we really want to look to 2030. The statistical information gets weaker as you get past about five years, because we don't know what construction is going to be in Newark, and we don't know what housing will look like. And then we're going to look at some facilities options to operate within budget. And probably more importantly, if I was a parent in the community, what programs are we going to provide to our six-year-olds? They're going to prepare them for the work world in 2030. And we likely don't have those facilities today. So we'll look at some data. So I'd like to start with the sheet that we passed out to the board. And we started at the top last time talking about, we're not talking about school closure. We're talking about right-sizing the school district. And the fact we need to learn is, what does our enrollment look like? And then we look at slide bubble two. And bubble two says, what's the right size that we can operate our schools with the dollars that we have? And there's only two sources of dollars. One comes from the state, and it reflects the state economy. And we've had some pretty good years recently, but you can see there's a downward trend. And that's just based on recession and some other things. The other is, how much is the taxpayer of Newark willing to pay for their schools? Then, when you look at that data, you look at What do we need to reconfigure? And as our superintendent eloquently said, it's not about closing schools. Could we repurpose a school and build a brand new school that would house maybe two schools, but be a school where wire wasn't stapled to the walls, as it is in Newark? To have the proper electrical outlets without extension cords running all over the place. to have a heating air conditioning system that saved the district money and not a unit that's 50 years old that runs on a different kind of Freon. Those are just some examples of what a new school would bring. And your architect has looked at the facilities and said you'll actually spend more money keeping the schools up than it will be to build some new schools. So that would be a facilities plan. and an opportunity to raise some money from sites that you may not use. Never sell a site would be my recommendation, but that doesn't mean you can't be entrepreneurial and raise larger dollars. I'm not talking about candy sale kind of money or non-profits. Work with profits to bring in substantial dollars, a half a million and up per year for the next 66 years. So I'd like to stop there and entertain any questions from the board before we move on. I thought the chart was pretty clear. OK, well, in order to move us forward, let's talk about some facts. Elementary school size in Alameda County. So I'm not comparing this to Los Angeles Unified or to a smaller area, but what's in our county of the 18 school districts? The range for schools for Alameda County ranges from a low of about 400 to 1,000. Actually, I know a couple schools that run at 1,200, but that's the exception, not the rule. But these are the standard operating sizes in Alameda County, going from Alameda, Berkeley, all the way down to South End, Fremont. The average size of the school in Alameda County is approximately 650 to 700. Now, why is that? That's because economically, a school district can provide quality programs when they have that. We've had some discussion, for example, of dual immersion. Almost impossible to have a dual immersion program with 300 students, because you have to match grade level for grade level one student of one language with another. When you have 650, you create a significant mass, You also don't have to have as many combination classes because you've got more breadth there. So that's the reason. It's basically an economic factor. What are the facts? Newark Unified's average school size is 357 students. We're going to dive a little bit deeper into that in a moment. Some key questions. These are board questions. that you will have to reach out to your community to help you answer. How many schools can Newark Unified afford to operate? That's different than how many we would like to operate. Because it's like buying a car. I always want all the toys on the car. But then when I hear the price, maybe I can live without cruise control because I don't use it that often if it saves So same kind of thing. So the board is going to need at some point in time to develop an optimal size. Why is that? Parity and equity. Any student in Newark should have the same thing as any other student. The board establishes the number of schools needed based on your optimal size. So we're not talking about closing schools yet. We're talking about developing an optimal size that you can afford to operate, not for one year, but for the next 10 years. That's what the complement started with, with that school board of a different generation. That's what they looked at and planned for, for this community. The budget impact. You can debate these numbers all day long, but I think you can easily prove that not having operational savings and operating a school is $400,000. And it would be very easy to generate $400,000 of revenue from any school that wasn't operating. So that adds up to $800,000 a year. And I'm not suggesting closing a school. I'm just looking at math. If you operated three fewer schools, You would save $2.4 million, and in one move, wipe out your current deficit without having to cut a pencil, a book, or a field trip from a student. Your consideration. That's your decision as a board. So let's take a look at how many schools can the board afford to operate. These are models, not end-all, be-all. So I'm starting with some numbers. Here's your current enrollment at the elementary level, 2,855. And you can see the numbers by grade level. And this is current data as of a week ago, when school opened a couple of weeks ago. Now here's something that I think is very important for the board to consider. When your schools were built, there's a capacity. Let's take Birch Grove, 415 students. and they have a capacity of 420. That's pretty close. Birch Grove Intermediate, 450 students, but we have 200 plus empty seats. Graham, 340, and you could double that school. Kennedy, Lincoln, doubled. Music, two and a half times. And you can see the rest, snow and chilling. So the bottom line is, you have 4,760 spaces. And what's really important, I wanna point out, we didn't include portables. That's just hard fixed buildings, not portables, because no community really likes portables. And I can prove to you, if you keep a portable for 30 years, you pay three times what a building costs. So any kind of facilities plan would include no portables in the district at all. Moving to slide six, the facilities master plan. This data comes from the consultant you hired and the architect. The architect is saying that it would take today's dollars, 600 million to rebuild all of your schools. And you would still have a fixed up, 1965 school. Yeah, you'd have new fenders on that 72 Vega, and you would have new upholstery, but it wouldn't have airbags. It wouldn't have directional controls. It wouldn't have the side barriers and all these things. Compare that to a school. I was speaking with our technology person today, and he was sharing with me how many holes we've had to punch into our buildings. because wire today in the schools is all above ground, not below ground. And we need to build capacity because we have no idea what technology will be in 2030. So the point is if we had 600 million today, Google wrote you a check or the Gates Foundation, you couldn't rebuild the schools in a couple of years. It takes longer than that. So the cost of this $600 million by the time you got it done in 15 years would be $800 million. And that's pretty normal, any inflation factor. Schools that were built in this county in 2012 that cost $25,000 today are $45,000. One of the districts that's within five miles just built a new elementary school and it cost them $62 million. So what does this look like in terms of the question you have to ask your community as a board? $800 million. How would we pay for $800 million? Well, whether it's a parcel tax or a bond, it's all about the number of homes, and there are 12,000 plus or minus 300 or 400. What would that equal? It would equal each household or each lot. Let me describe that. Most homes are on a lot, sometimes two lots. Most commercial property is on two or three parcels. Let me give you an example that we're all aware of, Home Depot on the corner of Thornton and the freeway. That's probably three or four parcels. And that would be a lot. So each one of them would pay $67,000 to take care of the bill. Now, we're not going to ask for $67,000 out of each house. That would never happen. But let's say that we divide that up. We keep all the schools. And what would be the cost per year per household? $4,500. So it just kind of frames the issue that you face and the community faces. And the reason this number is so high is you haven't done anything in a long time. Most communities pass bonds every two years. It's just what they have to do to keep schools up because the cost is expensive. So that gives you a framework of what keeping what we have is going to cost, and you have to make a decision. Can your community afford that? Would they consider that? And what would you get if you spent that $800 million at $4,500 a year per house increase in taxes? Pretty much fixed up schools. They have better wiring, better electricity, probably new heating, air conditioning systems. But they kind of would be what they look like now. You're not going to change the shape of the building. You're not going to have maker spaces particularly for kids to do different kinds of things. So, the question the board has to ask and we're not going to spend any time on it now, is that even doable? So, I want to talk about revenue sources for a moment. How do people pay for schools? Well, the first one is called the general obligation bond, a GEO bond. And the purpose, it has to be for capital facilities construction. And to pass that would take a 55% voter approval. And to give you an idea, $160 million bond with an assessed valuation of a home in Newark at 400,000. Now let me describe, an assessed valuation is not the price your home is worth. It's the number that's on your tax bill. that you're going to get in the next month. And usually it's about half, maybe a little lower than what the value of your house is. So to pass a $160 million bond, I'll refresh your memory because you had a company come and tell you that in January of 19, would cost a homeowner not $4,500 a month, or year, excuse me, would cost about $240. a year for 30 years. Now what other sources of revenue? And this has become quite popular in California the last few years. It's called a parcel tax. And a parcel tax can be used for program. It can be used for salaries. It can be used for general expenses. So let's say that you're going to do a dual immersion program. or a international baccalaureate program, or you want to have your kids go someplace. That could be used for that. The rules, much higher threshold, 67.7%. That's 67.7, two-thirds vote to pass it. So to frame it, one no vote takes out two yes votes. when you're trying to do that. They usually don't have an unlimited term. They can, but it's usually to get it passed to the voters, you have to do 3, 5, 7, 10, pick a number that your community will support, because if they don't like what you're doing, they want to be able to stop it. On a GEO bond, that's usually a 30-year GEO bond, and you get the money as you need it. Okay, I'd like to suggest, and I please for the audience and people that are watching, these are just models. It is not what we're gonna do. It's to show the board you can do something differently if you have the vision, the foresight, and the courage and wanna do it. So here's an option that staff has talked about. And quite often, the business guy gets up and he talks about numbers. We didn't do that here, because I was a sixth grade teacher. And both Jessica Cerveda and Letty Salinas and the superintendent, we started looking at program. And a program we could provide that's better than what we have, but yet we could afford. So we looked at some of the facts in Newark. We thought about, and this happened in a neighboring school district about three miles away, they've taken their junior highs and turned them into middle schools. And they've moved to sixth grade. Now why would that work in Newark if that was a choice? Cuz you've got a boatload of space. If you pass the bond, you could build a whole sixth grade wing and have every sixth grader in a brand new facility within two to three years. from the day you made the decision. Also, middle school students, you could self-contain it if that's what you chose, or you could do what they call core in the morning, and then in the afternoon, students would have an option of electives. It's weaning them into the high school mode, the college mode of things. So you would look at it. So we would call that system TK4. excuse me, TK5. And you would need, you would drop about 300 students, so your 2,900 would drop to about 2,600. And if you had schools of 650, you would need four of them. And if you were to pass a bond, within three years, you could build two to three brand new elementary schools of that size with all the 2,000 and 20 kinds of things that schools have. Proper wiring. Students today don't sit in rectangles with 30 rows and chairs. They need to move around. They need to use technology. You actually don't put carpet in schools anymore. Districts that I've seen, I do quite a bit of this, are using polished cement floors so the kids can work in groups here, teacher direct, then change the groups around, move to another part. They all wheel. and their plug-in device is right on their desk. We would have one middle school, no change there. It would just have another grade level and probably architecturally designed to not only fit but to kind of isolate the sixth graders a little bit to give it more of a self-contained classroom look but have the option for the facilities that are junior high. High school would remain the same. And your student number is probably going to drift down a couple hundred kids in the next few years with the demographics show. We've got to prove that by the second demographic report. So that's a option. It's an option you can financially afford. It's an option that will probably likely give you some dollars to increase salary. Because you will be able to generate from three or four sites in excess of $2 million relatively easily. Never recommend selling the land, but exchanging for a profit-making organization. You don't run anything. You own the same amount of land. It's a revenue stream that you can count on today and for as long as the lease. And they're usually a minimum of 20 years. to 66. The law actually allows you to go to 99 years now. It just changed January. And also, that action takes four of five votes of the board. You want community input, but you don't need to use the traditional 7-11 committee. So let's look at another option. I'm not selling any option tonight. Option B. You keep your sixth grades just the way you have them now. You have a TK-6 system. You would need five elementary schools, and you'd have 3,250 students capacity. Junior high would be a little smaller, be just what it is now. Trying to design options to create some comfortability. And your high school would be exactly the same. You would not have as much money. You would wipe out your deficit, but you wouldn't have anything to really make decisions on as far as what you want to add to the program, either in terms of staff and salary or in terms of program for students. Most elementary schools are now doing robotics and robotics labs across the state. because that's engineering and technology and math and science and STEAM and STEM. So that's a lot of information that we can discuss in a moment, but I also want to share what are some of the next steps so the community doesn't get the idea that the next board meeting you're going to make a decision, because you're not. You don't have enough information yet. So the first thing we want to review is how to review, how would you spend $160 million, and you likely would have to consider a bond in 2020, which is a year from now. And since you haven't passed a bond in a while, it's going to take a lot of volunteers. You have an active community. I've already met two parents I put in charge of the bond committee in a heartbeat, one of them sitting in the audience behind me. And you'll probably have to pass another bond in the area of 2024, 2026. And at the end of that time, you would have all brand new elementary schools for your community, and be able to put some money into Newark Memorial, which doesn't need to be rebuilt. It needs some technology, some air conditioning kinds of things. The other piece you want to look at, and we will be bringing to the board for their consideration, what would a parcel tax look like? And I can share that with you right now. So we talked about $160 million would cost the average homeowner about $240 a year. Parcel tax. A parcel tax of $100, and I said there was 1,200 parcels, would raise about $1.2 million. depending on who you exempt. It's quite often seniors are exempted in those. So that's a decision the board's going to have to make. Do we put our efforts into a parcel tax, which would take 67%, probably a year of information, and we raise $1.2 million? Or do we put our efforts into $160 million bond? Or do we do both? The answer to that question will come from when the board gives us direction, a political survey. I would recommend you use the same firm that you used in 2011-12 when you passed the bond and the same firm that works for the city of Newark that passed their utility tax because I think they have pretty decent data. We've gotten three proposals and we'll talk about that at another time. Step two. The teacher in me is coming out. Educational approach to grade configuration. It shouldn't be just mathematics. You want to have your associate superintendent and your superintendent look at what's going on in the nation with young people in education. Kids can Google anything they want. I think they know the answer. That's not necessarily accurate, but that can happen. So you're going to want to hear from your staff, your education staff in particular, what does an educational configuration look like? What grade configuration makes sense from an educational point of view? How can you operate that? How do the high schools and the junior high, middle school interact? Data shows that Newark is in the lower half of the salary range for Alameda County. And I think everybody would like to raise that salary range. How are we gonna implement solar installations? Newark's behind. Most schools have solar. And part of that is in energy savings. So those are some thoughts as we look at the money up here. And then what do you really want when you get done with this thing? So some to-dos for the board, and we'll come back to this. We've done a lot of talking, and your community's done a lot of talking. You need to see a picture of a community that has actually done this in the last 10 years. They operate a few for your schools, but they're all brand new. And a couple of your administrators have been in those schools and actually led them. And so I'm suggesting that the board do a three-hour field trip, and let's see what a school like music looks like in a neighborhood district, and what does a brand new school look like that's a block away. I think that's going to be very helpful to you. And then we're going to give the board a month to kind of go through this, because we've given you a lot of information, and have another study session on October 3rd. I'm done. I think I did it pretty quickly. So questions, comments for staff, thoughts from the board?

[2310] SPEAKER_37: Before we take questions, I just want to, we're committing to working on at least four study sessions on this theme, so it's not just a one-shot approach. But I wanted to share that, whatever questions the board might have for Barry or for us.

[2331] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Parks, did you want to address us at this time? Before the board asks questions.

[2341] SPEAKER_18: If I may, Mr. President, I think the board ought to have their discussion so the community can kind of hear what they're thinking, and then they get the full picture before they can comment, but that's your call.

[2354] Ray Rodriguez: That's not normally what we do, but I'll leave it up to the board. I'm just, even though I'm the president, I'm just one board member. How do you want to proceed?

[2364] SPEAKER_36: I wouldn't mind asking questions.

[2367] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Go ahead. You want to go first?

[2371] SPEAKER_36: Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Schimel. When I'm looking at the slide that says key questions, and you have the numbers of the capacity of the students of the schools, the junior high is not on there. Do you have off the top of your head the current enrollment for the junior high?

[2392] SPEAKER_18: for the junior high is approximately 875 students. 800? And 75.

[2399] SPEAKER_36: And then I believe you said it has a capacity of?

[2403] SPEAKER_18: I don't know the capacity. I can get that information for you.

[2405] SPEAKER_37: It's about 1,700 because it was a formal high school. Yeah, it was a formal high school.

[2409] SPEAKER_36: OK. That was one of the questions I had, because when you mentioned if we were to go into some of your doable options, if we were to do a middle school option, which is a 6th through 8th grade, you mentioned that there would still be construction at the junior high? There would still be needed construction?

[2427] SPEAKER_18: No. I would suggest, no, I think you could fit them all in just as they are. But if we're going to make that move, they should come to something better. And those are dated rooms. So renovations? No, I would think you would do some modular buildings. They have been coming up with some really nice. You'd probably look at 12 rooms and do a two-story, six building. But make it fit. You'd want to talk with staff where you architecturally put it so it was pretty and fit into the next modernization. of Newark Junior High, but also functionally because there's a, having been a junior high parent, we're always a little concerned about they're going to go from their little elementary school where we have our stuffed animals and everybody to the big bad world. And there's a way to transition that.

[2491] SPEAKER_37: And I would add, I would want to look for some iteration of upgrade. Maybe it's fixing the pool properly. having something that draws a better elective option for kids. So part of a bond, in my opinion, if they're successful, is every school should have something significant. I don't know if it means all new construction, but it might mean what are we getting to improve our electives before and after school, those type of things. But we're just putting pieces on the table for the board to help us sequence and shuffle to see what makes sense for the board.

[2525] SPEAKER_18: In the $160 million bond, I had planned for that new facility at the junior high because a new facility, a new program, middle school is kind of the crunch of when kids, so we don't lose them in high school.

[2544] SPEAKER_36: Okay. And then within the slide where you said you put the doable options, you mentioned something about if we were to close or do option A, it would require four out of five votes of the board.

[2557] SPEAKER_18: When you, no, not to do that option. The board can decide that on a majority vote. But if you take a property and lease it long term to a business, that would take four votes.

[2573] SPEAKER_36: Got it. OK.

[2574] SPEAKER_18: And then you can do that on a simple majority.

[2576] SPEAKER_36: I understand. And then just to clarify, you haven't given us Will it be in future study sessions the possibilities to do with our spare property?

[2589] SPEAKER_18: Yes.

[2589] SPEAKER_36: OK.

[2590] SPEAKER_18: But we don't want to get that far down the road if the board says, we're just going to run it the way we're going to run it. And when the state takes over, they take over.

[2601] SPEAKER_36: OK. And then just one final question for now. Within this plan, thinking that you guys are doing, is the property on Stevenson and Cherry, where we have the land to possibly build another property, another school. Is that taken into consideration, or is that not currently?

[2620] SPEAKER_18: No, that is actually taken into consideration. One of the things I didn't mention, it's for a future study session. If the board makes the decision to operate larger, brand new schools, then we have to look at boundaries and decide where the boundaries are going to be and where is growth. very futuristic looking at what's going on in that area where we have a school site and that if we don't, a year and a half is ticking on the clock of seven years where it returns to the developer. We've got to make a decision because it takes a year to a year and a half to get it through and I have an idea to shorten that through the state. Then you have to build it. And I haven't looked at the language but I believe the school has to be built by the end of the seven years, not just started. And we'd have to clarify the language. So I want to qualify that a bit. But you don't want to lose that property. And it seems like that's a growth area.

[2684] SPEAKER_36: OK.

[2684] Elisa Martinez: Thank you. You asked my question, actually. I was wondering if we were assuming the use of the land on Stevenson. Yes. The other point was around, I assumed it was just breaking ground, but you're saying it may have to be completion of. So that's something we need to do.

[2707] SPEAKER_18: I have to look through the lease agreement that was signed and how all that works. And candidly, some of that can be renegotiated, depending on the developer and the house. And I'm not sure who gets it back.

[2721] Elisa Martinez: The city. The city does.

[2723] SPEAKER_18: Oh, the city, OK. I know that. Well, that would be. would be prudent for the board to use the site because it's seven acres of land. And if it's in an area and you're building a new school, that's something you kind of have to look at. But it's really a boundary study that needs to be, where are your current students? Where are they going to be? And they look at, there's a new phenomenon because of our tax structure in the state. a 20-year-old home that used to be a lot of kids. None of my neighbors are moving. They can't afford to. Can't afford to pay new taxes. So there's no kids in large homes. And so that, I think, applies to Newark also.

[2777] Ray Rodriguez: Member John. I just had a, and Mr. Schimel, I really appreciate your experience. That being said, over the years, with my history, I've had a lot of people come up here and give us different figures. And, you know, all the experts. And everybody differs. Between 15 to 20 years ago, the board made a decision to keep our schools under 500. But at that time, we had about 8,000 students, if not more. And so things have changed. And our schools are under, and some of them much under. We had individuals come in a few years back when we were talking about the merger, and we ended up merging BGI and BGP. That told us that we were going to average 1.5 students from the building going on in that area. And we barely, I don't think we've grown, you know, half a student.

[2846] SPEAKER_18: That's a good point that you bring up, because when I used to do estimates for new homes, I counted a half a student. And I haven't really looked at that in four or five years. And I looked at schoolwork study, and they count for newer 0.18 of a student. 0.18, less than 2 tenths of a student. So it takes you 10 houses to have one kid.

[2871] Ray Rodriguez: Right.

[2872] SPEAKER_18: Agreed. That's very astonishing.

[2875] Ray Rodriguez: So, you know, there's always different figures being thrown out. We were told at one time that if we did consolidate or close a school, it would save us about $500,000. And when we really looked at it, when you figure the principal, the office staff, and the utilities you save, because you still have to maintain it unless you sell the property, was closer to around $250,000. And then you have it at a savings of about $800,000, I think you said.

[2912] SPEAKER_18: I have $400,000 savings, and you're absolutely correct. The number a few years ago was higher, and my colleagues helped me. But if it's a little bigger, you may need a few more custodial hours, so you can't take all of that out. But the fact of the matter is, I can sit down with you. What people forget is the salary of somebody is X. Let's take $100,000 salary. That's not what it costs you. It costs you $130,000 because you pay retirement and all that. So when you start to do a principal and a school administrator, office manager, this, that, you can get to $400,000 easily. I think I can prove a half a million, but it's not $250,000. The other part, if I may, because a lot of people may get confused, is it was $400,000 savings, and I said $800,000. It's if you do both sides. That's a crucial element. You save $400,000 that you don't spend, and then you use the land in a profit-making mode, not giving it to nonprofit organizations to use, because that'll cost you money. is that you lease it to somebody that's going to pay market rates. Then that's $400,000. That makes an $800,000 swing.

[3007] Ray Rodriguez: So it isn't a savings. It's a savings plus revenue you're talking about.

[3010] SPEAKER_18: Well, if you don't spend out of your checkbook and you increase your checkbook on the other side, you do have a net of $800,000 more to spend.

[3019] Ray Rodriguez: Understand. I don't agree with those numbers, but that's fine.

[3024] SPEAKER_37: Point of order, I wanted to answer the president's question from earlier. I think we can complete our closed session in 45 minutes, giving you 50 more minutes now. I just had a couple. And one type, one mistake that I want to correct now. Music Elementary actually has an enrollment of 309 today. I want to make sure we're clear about that number.

[3044] SPEAKER_18: Let me clarify. In all of these numbers, we're not talking about special education students. We're just talking about regular ed. So that's why the number is a little lower.

[3056] SPEAKER_37: So we need to include them.

[3058] SPEAKER_18: I didn't realize that. The reason I didn't, we're talking about income. Special ed runs on its own calculations and formulas and certain laws you have to do. So we're not talking about changing special ed in any shape or form.

[3073] Ray Rodriguez: What we've known for years is that special ed

[3076] SPEAKER_37: I want to just be clear that I want to include that number, and even if we had to call them, supporting those kids count. That's all. They do. They do count. And I just want to make sure that we do that. Thank you.

[3086] Ray Rodriguez: Yeah, I'd rather have them in there than not, but that's fine. There was other figures. The building of new schools. At one point, we were told, and this is going back a few years, I'm sure it's more expensive now. somewhere between 35,000, 40,000 for an elementary school. And it's a lot more than that, right, Matt? 30, 40 million is a. I mean about 30, 40 million, I'm sorry. It would be nicer if it was 30, 40,000.

[3121] SPEAKER_18: Those are 2017 numbers. Right. For a fact, I know schools were built in a neighboring district in 2012, 25 million. The same school that is being built in 2017, 18, is $42 million in the area of Pittsburgh. And a neighboring school just opened a district, opened an elementary school, and I want to see it because I can't believe it's $62 million. But I think $50 million for an elementary school, which your architects came up with, I didn't, is about right, plus or minus 5%.

[3159] Ray Rodriguez: Since I'm in the insurance business, and we sell homeowner policies, and we look at replacing a home. It used to be $180 a square foot. Now they're asking $250 to $300 a square foot. And it doesn't really matter where you live in Stockton or where you live here, because the construction people, they basically charge you the same. A junior high school or a middle school, what, $80 to $100 million? Is that basically what you're thinking there?

[3188] SPEAKER_18: Junior high school is pushing 80 to 100 million.

[3193] Ray Rodriguez: And then a high school, which used to be, let's say, 50 million, now it's what? Over 100, I would imagine.

[3200] SPEAKER_18: For President Rodriguez, it's all over the map. A minimum amount for a high school today would be 100 million, and that's a skimpy high school. If you want a high school with an auditorium, like Newark Memorial, We're now at $140 million. If you want the AstroTurf and football field and lights, $165 million. If you want a music and band room with acoustics and you have special programs like IB, you could be pushing $175 million. And by the time you constructed it in 2019 dollars, it could be $200 million.

[3240] Ray Rodriguez: So it's a matter of public record over the last years the prior boards, and myself being one of them, board members, have decided not to close down the school, as opposed to, except for member Thomas, you know, I mean, she was, you know, and it's public record that, you know, she's adamant about, and because of the numbers, okay? Not because she really wanted to close down the school. I don't think anybody wants to do that. So we know that our buildings are aging and that we have to find a way to either improve them, and I agree with you, you know, putting a Band-Aid on something doesn't really make it better, in my opinion. Yet we were able to pass a bond and for 100 and, no, for 66 million. And now we're looking at 160. One of the difficulties for us over the years has been the percentage that we need to pass a parcel tax. We did pass one of our bonds at 80% years ago. And so the community will support, but they have to feel that they're part of the equation, that it's inclusive and that what they are thinking matters. and sometimes that hasn't been there in the past. So I like this discussion and I want to move, you know, the more information you have the better. In two weeks we're going to have a fifth board member and so it's perfect for the next discussion in October so that that person would be part of the discussion. Okay, anybody else have anything before I ask?

[3360] SPEAKER_36: I think we all do. Yeah, we'll put it on.

[3364] Ray Rodriguez: we're going to be able to do that.

[3365] SPEAKER_36: Okay go ahead. Quick question again going back to the to have to the doable options. Just for clarification I'm looking at option a just to make it simple. Does the 4 elementary schools is this for new elementary schools. Yes. In this scenario, option A, how many would be closed down?

[3391] SPEAKER_18: I can't answer that yet. Your enrollment at 2,600, if you chose to move the sixth grade to the junior high, you would need four schools.

[3400] SPEAKER_36: So we would still have eight. So we still have eight.

[3406] SPEAKER_18: But what you would do, one model, and I want to come back to the board president's comment in a moment, but you would have four. And it would generate an awful lot of money. You would never sell the property. You might exchange properties to own some commercial property in Newark that would generate quite a bit of revenue.

[3429] SPEAKER_36: But we would be having eight running schools? No, you would have four. Four. OK, see, that's exactly. So that's where my confusion is. So we would have four new schools. We would close down four. Right, but we wouldn't sell them. But we have seven schools?

[3445] SPEAKER_18: Well, you would have six. You would have four elementary plus a junior high, five, high school, six, and you have an adult program and some other.

[3456] SPEAKER_36: So I guess that's what I'm trying to understand is our current elementary school buildings, we would not use at all.

[3465] SPEAKER_18: Within a four-year period, that would be correct.

[3467] SPEAKER_36: OK. And then.

[3468] SPEAKER_18: But you might use the sites, for example. I'll just pick one, and I hate to give We have school A, and it's in a location that it is.

[3478] SPEAKER_36: Yes.

[3479] SPEAKER_18: You would operate that school, and on the playground area, you would build a brand new school. OK. And at the end of when that school is ready to occupy students, you would take the students out of that old school, put them in their brand new school, You would generally try to do that in August. You can plan that out. So you end one year, have a celebration, move into your new school. Then you build a program, a playground, where the school is taken down. They can take down any one of your elementary schools in a week.

[3514] SPEAKER_36: OK. So then that was my next question is, location-wise, where would we put these schools? But location-wise, it would still be within the property that we currently have then? Yes.

[3523] SPEAKER_18: OK. Does it have to be? The answer is no. But logically, you would have to then trade this property for that property. And it would be a longer time.

[3535] SPEAKER_36: And then just finally, if we were to go with whatever plan, again, I'm just sticking to A just to make it simple. We know that we have you, you said, for a month, this month, September. How feasible is it that somebody in your position would be able to at least get a plan executed before you leave? Or are we looking at this as the ideas that you're feeding, and then later on, we would still continue working with somebody else?

[3564] SPEAKER_18: That would be up to the board and the superintendent.

[3566] SPEAKER_37: I have had conversations with Barry to stay with us until we get a little more clarity on this topic and to continue working with him, especially just on this project as a separate contractor.

[3576] SPEAKER_18: If I may, in closing, I'd like to address board member Rodriguez's feeling, which is normal and human. We want to keep all our schools in just operating. You can do that if you're in a community like Los Altos. Los Altos has 2,000 students. Their schools run at 350 students. I think they have three of them, four of them maybe. And they have been paying for years, a couple thousand dollars a year more to keep that going. You can have smaller schools. The question the board needs to ask is, is your community going to pay for it? Everybody wants it.

[3619] Ray Rodriguez: Exactly, thank you. We still have two people who want to speak, so I'll entertain Member John and then Member Martinez, and then we need to, because we're running out of time here.

[3636] Bowen Zhang: I just have a question regarding the construction cost. What is the reason you think that it will cost Dublin $266 million to build a second high school? way higher than the number you cited.

[3650] SPEAKER_18: The reason the construction cost is where we live. We compete with Apple, we compete with Google, we compete with Facebook. I happen to live in the San Jose area and Google's buying everything that moves down there. And so if you're a contractor, they're taking the labor. And this is going to sound a little critical, But it's much easier to build in the private sector than in the public sector. And school boards across the state, no reference to Newark, it's hard to deal with school boards building. Just the structure. You go to an owner of Google, he wants this building, he wants it this way, you give him a price and you're done. Okay, thank you.

[3706] Elisa Martinez: For me, it's just a comment. So I really appreciate the presentation. It's no surprise to many that this is exactly what I've been looking to have a conversation around, which is data. I know that it is incomplete data. It's not enough for us to make a decision. So I really appreciate just putting some initial numbers in front of us, not just us as a board, but the community. This is just the beginning of the conversation. This is what we have. This is what we've had in front of us as a question, which is, what can we afford from a right-sizing perspective to be able to give our kids what we want to give them? So this is not an easy conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to prepare this. Thank you.

[3752] Ray Rodriguez: You're welcome. And I'm excited about the revenue side, naturally, of being able to use a site and not selling it and be able to create revenue, which is something that we've talked about in the past, and we did a little bit with the Russian site, but it could have been maximized a lot more. Okay, so with that... Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Barry. Appreciate it. Ms. Parks. And then Ms. Duke.

[3788] SPEAKER_36: Go ahead. Mr. Schiml, do you need your computer?

[3800] Cindy Parks: Let me just start off by saying, once again, that it would be very helpful to the community to have these types of documents ahead of time, to walk into a meeting and have to assimilate everything that's in here, let alone the presentation, is very difficult. So bear with me. I hope that I can do this in a fashion. Go ahead. The best I can. I take offense to the fact that the comment that was made by someone who's been here for a month and will be leaving before in a month, the fact that this community has not supported the schools. They passed Measure A when you had no multipurpose rooms. When Measure B came about, that was passed with 80%, as you mentioned, Mr. Rodriguez. When Measure G, even when we were just coming out of a recession, Measure G passed with 55.9, just barely, but it passed. Again, I take offense at the comments that we don't support when it came, it was voted on, it was approved. Maybe not the parcel tax, but the bond, GO bonds were. Regarding electrical and heater issues, if things are hanging by extension cords, that's by somebody not reporting something and not being written up in a PO or a work order and not being dealt with. There's still $9 million in Measure G that could be used to help with some of these items. School Works. School Works is who did your justification study for your developer's fees in February of 2018. At that point, they said your student enrollment was 0.5116. You just hired them again to do your demographic study. Now, I understand a justification study is different than the demographic study, looking for developers fees versus actually telling you how many butts and chairs you're going to have. But they weren't right. Let's go to their capacity study, because in justification, you do capacity. Gutierrez, go to the justification study for February 26, 2018, and you'll see how much your capacity is at the sites. For the junior high, it's 1431, and that includes four portables. So where you got numbers that didn't include portables, this includes portables. For the high school, 2970 with 20 portables. For your elementary, 4525 with 24 portables. Your, to answer the question that was asked about when you have to start building, according to the liaison committee meeting, the city manager in April, it was you have seven years to begin constructions of a permanent elementary school. I take note with the districts are passing bonds every two years. I've been concerned about that. Your numbers, you had 7,700 in 2000. You have built a ton of houses, and yes, I understand you don't have the numbers today, but you have houses that are still being built. How many more students will be coming in here? I really, really, really hope that you take your time to go through the reports, look at everything that's available. Before you make a snap decision, we don't need a bunker Milani merger nightmare. Thank you.

[4003] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. And then Mr. Medina, and I think that's it. And then we'll go to closed session.

[4020] SPEAKER_15: Good evening. I too take great offense at a remark saying that this community has not supported the needs of a growing district. I have lived in this community for 41 years. The home I live in, which is very satisfactory, was built in 1968, and I was still quite a young person when that home was built. This community supported measures A, B, and G. As a matter of fact, my husband and I supported some of those initiatives. In the past, I have stated here publicly that because of a vote of no confidence from our family, as well as this community to the county that I don't think either one of us would at this time under these conditions in good conscience be able to support another initiative, vote for another initiative until some very creative changes were made. My husband currently serves on the CBOC committee which personally and we argue about this, I think is a total waste of time because it talks about how money has been spent. And this community is going to be a very hard sell when it comes to quality expenditures of money that this community would grant you. To me, $340 a year is nothing. I would gladly vote for more money from our household, and I am happy to pay my taxes when, as, and if I believe in a school district's ability to competently spend that money. I would suggest a creative decision of an underside committee. You've probably never heard of one. I would staff this underside committee with, oh, I don't know, high schoolers, sixth graders, a ton of community members, and maybe one board of education or administrative person because we will be paying the bills. We will be reaping what we sow in terms of our tax dollars. So if you can be a little more creative, I will walk the streets for you again. But right now, I don't have the confidence, based on history, that the money will be spent in a prudent manner. Thank you.

[4168] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. Mr. Bedina, and then Ms. Karkanen. And then that's it. Hello.

[4190] SPEAKER_03: Hello. Thank you. I'm a little sick today, but I'm here battling. I'd like to first start saying, I first started a year and a half, or a year probably, almost a year, when I first came. I actually talked about, Ms. Nancy talked about closing schools and that's the reason why I came here the first time a year ago. That's a year ago. So we're back at it. What kind of frustrating for myself and I think a lot of parents is that we have to make decisions. And yeah, I'm glad that this is presented and the discussion is there. I'm glad that you're thinking 15, 20 years from now, because I think that's what you guys are there for. But I definitely think that there has to be some actions done immediately in order to regain the confidence in the community. Cuz obviously, I did all the same thing that the last speaker said. I just think that we have to make sure that the decisions are made, make a decision. Don't have us on limbo. Again, once again, the kids are the ones who are suffering. So for you to go on a study session, this is great, this is long term. But we have to think about the short terms of what we need to do. You got money that need to be adequately spent. I mean, I voted on that bond, the last one, and there's $11 million or so that we can fix things. We can do things, because this is not gonna happen right away. So we need to still give our kids a quality building. When I go to music school, the bathrooms are broken. The grass looks, I mean, I walk right there and the grass looks, come on, we don't need to last couple months. It was better in the summer than it is right now. So there's some things that need to get done. And if those things don't get done, how can I have the confidence to come back? Even myself, I've been pushing on a parcel tax, and I'm for it, I'm willing to pay. I'm willing to have Los Altos School District, because I would love to have my kid in a small class, and I'll be willing to pay the teachers. And I'm willing to do that. So I don't think I'm the only community member that's willing to do that. So I believe that there is ways to work together. And I believe that definitely there has to be a community involvement on it. And it has to be done consistently. So I hope that you guys try not to waste more time. I'm here again a year ago about closing schools. Make a decision. Give some direction to the staff. If you're not going to make a decision, then step out. It's OK. It's OK to step out if you can't make those tough decisions. Because we need somebody there that can make a decision. I don't care if it's tough or not, but make a decision. We can't go back on and on again. OK?

[4382] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. I'm going to make a motion. And then miss accuracy.

[4395] SPEAKER_11: Just wanted to make a comment that's I'm probably probably relatively less familiar with the school district and a lot of the attendees. that could be used to support community members. Engagements could be to leverage community member support that could also. Take the form of local business and corporate sponsorships to supplement areas where the district needs additional money. And then more specific to the presentation that was given on the last school districts. I think if we were to look at Newark unified school district from an educational perspective. It would seem to me there's a real opportunity here to look at not only the fiscal impact of having middle school and a 6 through 8 or a 7 3 configuration but also. Compared to other school districts that have a 7 3 that it creates more success for students as they go into high school and helps them a lot more. But I think there's real opportunities to take a look at that data and then to make sort of a decision not just based on obviously based on the fiscal impact, but how the community will ultimately could be sold on this as well as the educators and as well as the members of the board is we're going to have to look at how much better are kids doing in high school when they come from a 6 through 8 middle school is compared to a 7th grade 7th grade junior high. I don't know if that analysis has been done but taking a look at as soon as possible would could really help inform making a decision and then also finding ways to we're going to have to look at. The decision that is for proposed decision being thought to as far as how to. Is how to how to move forward with the configuration of the schools.

[4539] SPEAKER_16: Take your time, I'm pushing that button. My name is Sandy Accarizzi. A lot of things kind of going on in my mind. Community member, I lived in Newark as a teenager, came back as a mother. My children have gone through the school districts, kind of hoping that someday I'll have grandchildren and they'll do the same. My views may not be very popular. I realize that and after listening, it's like I do need to speak. As I look at the executive board, As I look at our school board, I see a lot of different faces. Ray, I adore you. I adore your grandchildren. You're the one familiar face. And I'm thinking that when looking here, the people who are here have inherited a bad situation that has been in the making for many, many years. I have office manager at music, office manager at snow. district office and now at Birch Grove Intermediate, we are the largest elementary school right now. And as I'm listening, as I listened to the presentation that you gave, you actually got me excited because I'm thinking closing schools and how that affects our school, how it affects our community. Being at BGI, I came at the end of the first year of the merge. and a lot of hurt parents without a doubt, and things have settled down. But we're not talking about closing a school and sending kids everywhere else. We're talking about taking the schools that we have, building on that site, bringing together more students, which by the way, I really hope the office gets more help by, you know, clerks, vice principal. That would be really good, but that really makes me excited. And so, again, I'm thinking not in the most popular view. I don't envy any of you in the seats that you are in because you have a lot of people who are angry with the past. who need or have the trust earned, but I'm hearing good questions from new board members that are moving us in the right way. I know that we need to make hard decisions and I'm grateful to be a part of this meeting today to hear, to listen. My mind is open. Hey, hot dog. Okay, my mind is open and I just look forward to where we end up with the study session. Thinking about saving all the money, we're talking about a principal, office manager, and so forth. I'm hoping that you're taking into account that if we get over a certain point that our principals would then have a vice principal. Being the largest school, my clerk is inundated with PBIS implementation of that, majors and minors, which is a data gathering tool. And so, I have my office clerk who has her normal hours plus the EL liaison hours and she's drowning. So I'm just hoping upon hope that if we move in that way, we have extra help. Thank you.

[4723] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And we appreciate all the enthusiasm that you bring to our kids and take care of our kids no matter where you're at. That concludes our closed session, I mean our study session. And we're going to... I have two more of these, that's the thinking?

[4747] SPEAKER_37: I would like to do at least three more.

[4749] Ray Rodriguez: OK. Maybe more if needed. OK. OK. So before we go to a closed session, we have public comment closed, I believe. Yeah, but I want to read what we're going to discuss in closed session. Public employee discipline dismissal release, conference with labor negotiator, employee organizations, and newer teacher association. and classified school association, public employee appointment or employment, chief business official, legal counsel, and the evaluation, talking about goals with the superintendent. OK, so before we go to closed session, Mr. Merritt, did you want to speak on before we go to closed session?

[4807] Ray Rodriguez: Now, you're not used to this, but you're limited to three minutes. You know that.

[4811] SPEAKER_17: You just cut into three seconds of my time, President Rodriguez. Now, the thing that I want to talk to you about is you have on your agenda the negotiations with the update, whatever. Boy, I'm really talking clear here. I don't know what happened to this microphone. Anyway. As you know, we're in negotiations. And I'd really, our team, the NTA team has worked really hard to put thoughtful time into proposals. It is my understanding that at our last negotiations, we were supposed to get a financial update. We did not. And there was an illusion that we would not get a compensation offer until all the other articles have come. I don't think that's fair for bargaining. We need to move forward with a compensation offer sooner than later. We are working on an expired contract. Nearly one-third of the NTA positions changed from last year to this year, including many resignations and brand new hires. That compensation is a major concern for our members and for those that are left. It's no doubt.

[4902] Ray Rodriguez: So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Knoop. Good evening. After Mr. Knoop, excuse me, we'll go to closed session.

[4914] Cary Knoop: Good evening. I want to bring up two items from the closed session. One is about the discussion about hiring a CBO, and I just want to emphasize that, of course, that's an executive operation mostly, but I think what is important for the board is that they make sure that the CBO, A, is in a position where he accurately is capable of informing the board of the financial state of the district. you know, providing the right level of detail that board members need, especially when they have to do deficit spending and things like that. Very important that the CBO can do that. So that's what I wanted to say about the CBO position. With respect to the NTA negotiations, I think it's very important that the board make sure they understand the financial impact of the proposals that the NTA brings forward. I know they bring up, they have a current proposal of 334, but it's not just the increase in salaries. That's relatively easy to calculate what the impact is. You know, you multiply it and you take the benefits there and it's relatively easy. But what is harder to put in money terms is, for instance, what if we say, well, less than 10%, only up to 10% special ed students can be in a classroom. What's the financial impact of these things? And I think it's the obligation of the district to properly inform the board about the financial impact of all the elements that are in the NTA proposals so that the board can, knowledge is power, right? That the board can make an understanding of what the financial impact of all these elements is. Also, when the first interim comes along, I think it's very useful for the board, for the district, and the public to, in addition to make a multi-year forecast, also put the current proposal of the NTA next to that and make a best effort to say, well, if we would go along with this, this would be the financial impact. And of course, we want to do that as objective as possible, you know. But most important thing is that we want to make sure that the financial information we provide is accurate, and I'll talk to you about that later when the actuals come out, because if there's a real understatement in financials, that's not fair. We want to do fair negotiations. The board wants to negotiate tough, but you want to be fair. You want to talk with numbers that are realistic, not like, well, in June 1st, we thought this, and then you have a contract with CSA, and then in August, September, something else comes across. That's not fair practice as far as I'm concerned. So you want to make sure that you give the right financial information. Okay? Thank you very much.

[5095] Ray Rodriguez: Thank you. So in a couple of weeks, we'll have five board members, and we live by majority rule. So nothing moves forward unless three out of the five moves it forward. And as far as understanding, we have excellent negotiation teams on both sides, and I can assure you that if not before, definitely after. the board does understand the importance of having correct information when it comes to negotiations. Okay, with that, we'll go to closed session. And hopefully we can, 45 minutes, do our best.

No minutes available.