Oaklanders should not tolerate this attempt by a handful of dogmatic preservationists -- bankrolled by profit-driven San Francisco developer Emerald Fund -- to sell-out Fruitvale’s children.

I offer you four reasons why all Oaklanders should support the demolition of the Ward building to make way for a state-of-the-art school in Fruitvale:

#1: While preservation and reuse are good policies, they just couldn’t work here. I, along with the rest of Oakland’s City Council support a Sustainable Development policy, which includes preservation and reuse of buildings whenever feasible. We spent years trying to develop a plan to rehabilitate the Wards building. The least expensive proposal we received would have cost Oakland tax-payers $12 million. Additionally, for the last six years, the community has demanded a new school in the San Antonio/Fruitvale – the area with the most overcrowded schools in Oakland, possibly in all Northern California. There was no other city-owned parcel in the area large enough to accommodate an elementary school and still qualify for state construction funds. Due to school construction standards, the school could not go inside of the existing structure. We explored all these options.

The Old Merritt College renovation near Childrens Hospital was a successful reuse project because there was community support for the renovation and the community’s needs fit the building. With Wards, that simply is not the case.

Roy and Brokl –in both their Tribune editorials and in propaganda their group has distributed in the Fruitvale – claim that developer Emerald Fund can build the new 600-student school AND save the building with no City subsidy. They can’t. It’s a lie.

This proposal surfaced after the City’s review process ended and we had an exclusive deal with the school district. It was never submitted for formal review. School officials assure me that its proposed school component could never receive State approval for even 300 students – let alone 600 students. And even if Emerald Fund’s proposal were possible, it is an insult to the Fruitvale community.

Roy and Brokl fail to explain that Emerald Fund’s non-demolition proposal builds a school on only 7% of the current site – leaving 93% for over 300 units of luxury live/work and 100 units of affordable housing. The proposal completely eliminates the currently planned playing fields and open space at the new school—criminal considering that Fruitvale already has the least open space and recreational facilities in all of Oakland. Under the preservationists/developer’s proposal, residents of the renovated Wards building would have beautifully landscaped open space and a pool. The school children would have an asphalt playground on top of the residents’ parking garage.

Would you let a developer build over 400 units of housing on YOUR child’s school playground?

#2: We must relieve the unconscionable overcrowding at Hawthorne Elementary School. The new school on the Ward site is needed to relieve overcrowding at nearby Hawthorne Elementary. Hawthorne’s campus was originally built to accommodate 350 elementary school children—its current enrollment is 1,400! Even with the construction of additional buildings on what used to be playground and open space, the current facility should hold only 650 students. Hawthorne is one of only two schools in Oakland on a year-round schedule where classes rotate rooms every 21 days—disruption that causes an estimated loss of 20 instructional days per year. Classroom rotation and overcrowding are recognized contributors to Hawthorne’s designation as an under performing school. We can never make up for the education lost during those formative years. Fruitvale’s children deserve the same educational opportunities as the rest of Oakland’s children.

Would YOU urge officials to delay construction of YOUR child’s new school so YOUR child can spend one more formative year in an under-performing, year-round school -- overcrowded at more than twice its capacity?

#3: There is a clear community mandate for demolition. For years Fruitvale residents have voiced both their disdain for the monstrous blighted building and their demand for a decent new school to relieve overcrowding. Despite Roy’s outrageous claim that "they weren’t asked," I have walked every block in Fruitvale several times over, knocking on doors and talking to neighbors for the last nine years. As their representative, I have listened to thousands of residents by phone, at homes and at meetings -- including one OCO meeting in 1999 where 2,200 Fruitvale residents came to demand a new school at the Ward site! Demolition of Ward for a new school has been a top community concern for at least six years and a campaign promise that got me re-elected. Roy claims that after one day of talking with people in my "[surprisingly] friendly neighborhood," this community suddenly wants to save the building. This is insulting and ridiculous.

People who haven’t had to live in the shadow of a large, ugly, dangerous blighted building nor send their children to severely overcrowded schools may think it nice to save the old building. Fruitvale residents do not.

#4: Our children should always come first. Neither developer fees nor preserving old buildings are more important than securing the best possible future for our children. While the preservationist/developer propaganda brags it would bring a supposed $650,000 in property taxes and one-time $850,000 in school impact fees to Oakland, these funds are paltry compared to the priceless promise of a better education for our children.

Would you want your City representatives to accept any amount of cash in exchange for YOUR child’s educational opportunities—YOUR child’s future? I hope not.