Oversight efforts set to begin

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- At long last, the committee that will oversee the

district’s spending of $163 million to fix Newport-Mesa schools will meet

tonight.

Although the group still lacks two members from the Corona del Mar

area -- who were to be installed before the first meeting -- the

committee will meet as is, said Mike Fine, the district’s assistant

superintendent of business services.

The group’s first order of business will be to appoint two senior

citizen and four at-large representatives, he added.

Apart from selecting the final six members, the group must also

establish a meeting schedule at the first meeting.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board of Education developed

a specific list last year of areas that are to be represented by the

31-member districtwide oversight committee and rules for how they were to

be appointed.

Filling those positions is a process that began in February, when

district staff distributed 33,000 letters seeking applicants.

Committee members will be responsible for ensuring the $110-million

bond voters approved in June, and the $53 million in state matching funds

that came with it, are spent correctly.

Committee members are expected to begin looking through the facilities

master plan, which outlines the work needed at schools.

The committee’s next task will be to pick a leader and then

subcommittee members who will sit in on interviews for the construction’s

project manager on March 1, Fine said.

The first improvement taxpayers can expect to see will take place on

school playgrounds, Fine said, because those projects do not require

state approval.

Other construction is expected to begin during the summer months,

again starting with projects that do not require state approval, which

include such stand-alone projects as the repaving of parking lots and

swimming pool repairs.