Public pays for not falling through cracks...

Public pays for not falling through cracks

I am surprised that your editorial, “Back to school and hopefully

more success,” on Sept. 10, treaded so lightly on the matter of the

rebuilding of Burbank’s schools. You politely referred to “challenges

of modernization, including costly planning and communication

missteps that fell through the cracks of bureaucracy.”

Granted every construction project has its glitches but major

errors -- like classrooms with no heat or air conditioning, flooding

at John Burroughs High School and the concrete leeching in the

parking lot at Burbank High -- are more than “missteps.” We, the

taxpayers of Burbank, trusted the prior School Board and the Bond

Oversight Committee to oversee these projects and the staff.

We were supposed to get the use of the Burbank High School library

and we didn’t. Somehow no one ever looked beyond the statement

“on-time and under-budget”. Well, when you don’t put in essential

items, that certainly should be “on-time and under-budget” because we

didn’t get what we were supposed to. Is the current school board

going back to contractors and possibly former staff members demanding

solutions?

We, the taxpayers of Burbank, agreed to pay for the school bond

for 30 years. We deserved to get what we paid for. Students’ needs

shouldn’t “fall through the cracks of bureaucracy.” We, the taxpayers

and the students of Burbank, shouldn’t be denied the final phases of

the modernization due to “communication missteps.” While your

editorial comments touched on the loss of vocational training at

Glendale College -- where is it in the high schools?

Not everyone is going to college. The world still needs plumbers,

woodworkers, etc. and because we expect the schools to do so much

with so little we won’t have them.

Where are they going to learn?

I applaud and commend all the staff that has had to go through

years of remodeling under grueling conditions. I respect a lot of the

administrators whose hearts and heads are in the right place -- the

students. But I can’t help but bemoan the inadequacies that caused

the “costly ... missteps” of the school modernization projects.

LYNNE GERRED

Burbank

Mover had a chance to make a difference

If Community Commentary writer Robby Shaw is happy to leave

Burbank, then I’m happy to see Shaw go (“Glad to be getting out of

Burbank,” Wednesday). Shaw complained about the growth, traffic,

buildings, construction and noise, but you live 12 miles away from

downtown Los Angeles. If I wanted nothing but peace and quiet, I

would live somewhere other than the second largest metropolitan area

in the United States.

Shaw also complained about Burbank politics and the current makeup

of the City Council but failed to note that we just had an election.

Burbank residents just reelected three City Council members. Perhaps

the voters know something that Shaw doesn’t? Maybe the rest of us

understand that Los Angeles is growing. According to the 2000 Census,

Northwest Los Angeles County’s population surged 49% from 1990-2000

and the San Fernando Valley grew an astonishing 93%. There has to be

growth in Burbank; there has to be development in order to handle

that kind of population growth. The question is how that growth is

managed. It needs to be balanced and well-planned and I think the

current City Council recognizes that. Does Shaw really think the

council regulars who attack every development, every new restaurant,

every new housing project, every plan no matter what the design

understand the reality of the situation?

The opinions Shaw and others espouse are so predictable it’s

almost funny. I remember at one meeting the proprietor of the Cold

Stone Creamery near the AMC theaters came up to the microphone after

the presentation of Phase II of the AMC project saying that he didn’t

know who or why anyone would object to the redesigned project, but I

knew exactly who would.

Then, as if on cue, one by one each of the council regulars came

up to state objections, over and over and over again. Each time

clapping and giving each other praise or childishly booing and

hissing those who disagreed. Well, now Shaw is leaving Burbank and is

happy about it. Well there’s another person that’s happy and that’s

me!

Good luck wherever Shaw goes.

ALFRED ABOULSAAD

Burbank