If at First You Don't Succeed: After Failing in 2022, MUSD to Try Again with November Bond Measure

Also, refinery Safety Culture Assessment released; latest on Old Train Depot; fish kills at Hidden Lakes pond; police staffing; new diversity commission; Martinezian advances to Olympic quarterfinals

The Martinez Unified School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously on July 26 to place a $90 million bond measure on the Nov. 5 ballot, hoping that voters will have a change of heart after they narrowly defeated a similar proposal two years ago.

Board members weighed positive survey results showing voters may be in a more generous mood this time around, after Measure K fell about 2.5 percentage points short of the 55% approval required for passage in 2022. Also, turnout for the Nov. 5 presidential election should be significantly higher than it was for the 2022 midterms.

The bond measure is designed to complete the district’s master facilities plan following a wave of construction projects funded in recent years by two other voter-approved local bonds: the $45 million Measure K in 2010 and the $120 million Measure R in 2016. Most of the district’s campuses have built rebuilt or renovated through those bonds.

District leaders say another bond is needed to finish the job started by the first two and address critical infrastructure needs at Alhambra High School (AHS), Martinez Junior High School (MJS) and the Martinez Adult Education (MAE) campus, which is in particularly bad shape.

The district hopes to rebuild the adult school, currently located off Alhambra Avenue a couple blocks from AHS, at a new location on Susana Street near the district offices. That could open up the current F Street location as a source of much-needed revenue generation as the school district combats ongoing budget challenges. It also has been floated as a possible future site for workforce housing, as local officials continue to look for ways to address the affordable housing crisis that has made it increasingly challenging to recruit and retain quality employees.

The potential relocation of the adult school “opens up a whole variety of things to discuss about that property,” Superintendent Helen Rossi said at the July 26 board meeting.

Addressing the need for a new adult school, Rossi said it sometimes seems as if the aging campus, which is a popular community draw for its vocational training and personal enrichment courses, is held together with scotch tape. “In some areas, you can push on the walls and the portables are rotten,” she said.

(As someone who has taken multiple classes at the adult school over the years, I can attest to its poor physical condition).

The bond would also potentially fund projects at AHS, including a second gymnasium; security fencing to create a single point of entry and improve safety; tennis court replacements; and upgrading the HVAC system. At MJS, the district hopes to potentially create a larger music room, install new flooring, and modernize the cafeteria.

Rossi said music students at the junior high haven’t been able to fit into the current music room for a long time.

Although the vote was unanimous to place the bond on the November ballot, board members wrestled with the 2022 election defeat and whether they should reduce the amount sought in this bond. Board member Anne Horack Martin said she had heard from some in the community that they would not support the measure unless the amount was reduced.

Fellow trustee Tania Brugger also floated the idea of reducing the dollar amount of the measure, but she and Horack Martin were ultimately swayed to go for the full $90 million, acknowledging that the district would need to wage an aggressive information campaign to explain the measure and the projects it would finance to voters.

The district is not allowed by law to actively campaign for voters to pass the measure, but board members can be expected to individually canvas for its passage as private citizens, along with a campaign committee that will be established to raise funds and lobby voters.

The district can spend money on strictly “informational” efforts to explain the measure and how the district would spend the money to voters.

Board member Yazmin Llamas advocated for the district to hold informational “open houses,” adding that “we need to do a better job of educating our community of what our needs actually are.”

If approved, property owners within the district’s boundaries (which lie both within and outside Martinez city limits) would pay an estimated annual tax of $38.40 per $100,000 of assessed valuation (the bond’s consultant said the tax likely would not show up on property tax bills until 2027, after the first tranche of bonds is sold). The rate would be expected to continue through fiscal year 2058-59 but could fluctuate depending on changes in interest rates and potential refinancing of bonds. That tax would be in addition to the $45.50 per $100,000 in assessed valuation that property owners are currently paying to fund Measure K and $49.30 per $100,000 to fund Measure R.

It typically takes 25 to 30 years to pay off a bond and remove it from the property tax rolls.

If the November measure passes, the owner of a property within MUSD’s boundaries assessed at $500,000 would ultimately pay an estimated total of roughly $666 annually to fund the three measures, based on the current rates for the three bonds.

School board President Courtney Masella-O’Brien acknowledged that she was conflicted between the need to address critical infrastructure needs in the district and the knowledge that “we’ve already asked a lot of the taxpayers in Martinez.”

MUSD voters also approved a $75 parcel tax renewal in March.

MRC Safety Culture Assessment released

Contra Costa Health (CCH) last week released the independent Safety Culture Assessment of the Martinez Refining Co. for public review and comment. The assessment by consultant Scott Berger and Associate was prompted by a series of accidents and releases at MRC starting with the “spent catalyst” incident on Thanksgiving night in 2022.

The executive summary of the report found that MRC is “performing well” in the three-high level areas identified as crucial to maintaining a strong process safety culture:

• Execution of the Process Safety Management System (PSMS);

• Reduction of risk toward a level considered generally acceptable;

• A focus on the elimination of process safety incidents, both site-wide and company-wide

The report goes on to state:

At the more detailed level, MRC also performs well in areas such as pressure equipment mechanical integrity, interlock integrity, and emergency preparedness and response. We believe that MRC’s high-level performance, coupled with the company’s success in managing these elements, will serve as a good foundation for addressing the improvement opportunities we identified in other areas at the detailed level of MRC’s process safety management systems.

The report identifies the following “improvement areas” for MRC, which primarily stem from the factors that led to the spent catalyst release and showered the surrounding community with toxic dust, triggering widespread community alarm.

• Tighten the policy for deviating from procedures, most notably the policy for use of manual control mode.

• Implement correct identification of root causes and improve the approach to making recommendations to better prevent repeat incidents.

• Set timely deadlines for correcting material process safety audit findings that have urgency.

• Increase the rigor of several dimensions of the refinery’s Asset Integrity program.

Burger’s report recommends that MRC “urgently address improvements in the first three areas.” It also found “that employees’ reported feelings of confidence that they were working in a safe refinery — although not low — were not as high as workers and refinery leaders would like them to be.”

The full report can be read at the following link: https://www.cchealth.org/home/showpublisheddocument/30507/638568964346570000

Members of the public can comment on the report by emailing hazmat.arpteam@cchealth.org or sending written comments to:

Contra Costa Health Hazardous Materials Programs
Attn: Michael Dossey
4585 Pacheco Boulevard, Suite 100
Martinez, CA 94553

They can also comment on the report at a public meeting scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 15, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Contra Costa County Administration Building, Room 110A/B/C, 1025 Escobar St., Martinez. It also will be accessible via Zoom at the following link: https://zoom.us/j/92518494318#success

Comments on the report will be accepted through Sept. 16.

Note to readers: The following items are highlights from the City’s Council’s July 17 meeting. As of Aug. 4, the video for the July 31 council meeting was not yet available on the city’s website. Look for a post regarding highlights from that meeting once I have an opportunity to review the video.

Back to drawing board for Old Train Depot

Negotiations fizzled earlier this year between the city and Martinez Historical Society following several years of talks about turning the historic Old Train Depot into a local museum, and officials are now looking at what to do next.

The city is undertaking remediation efforts, including lead and asbestos removal, to make the property at 401 Marina Vista Ave. suitable for future development, which will include a competitive bid process. At the July 17 City Council meeting, the council declared the property exempt from the California Surplus Land Act, which should provide more flexibility in how it can be sold and developed (because of infrastructure complications, including underground gas pipelines and proximity to rail lines, it is not considered suitable for housing development).

The depot, originally built in 1877, has been damaged and renovated multiple times over the years, and is currently vacant and in disrepair.

Expressing hope that the city is finally on the verge of a long-term plan for the depot, Councilman Mark Ross said, “That has been another holy grail, what are we going to do with it, for 20 years.”

Police staffing challenges continue

Police Chief Andrew White told the council July 17 that his department continues to struggle with staffing shortages, facing a 30% “effective vacancy rate” that he anticipated growing to 35% this month.

White said the continuing staffing shortage has affected the department’s ability to meet requests from the community for increased services in certain areas. He noted that with the start of the school year around the corner, the department would be unable to staff a traffic unit.

“It does impact our response,” White said of the staffing shortage.

The department has undertaken an aggressive hiring campaign to address the chronic staffing woes over the past couple years, but it continues to struggle to fill openings as fast as they open. White referenced an “extremely competitive” hiring market for police officers in California, with one city offering a $100,000 incentive for lateral hires.

Diversity and Cultural Commission created

After years of discussion, the council has formally created a Diversity and Cultural Commission. The new commission will focus on “community initiatives that promote diversity, equity and belonging” in Martinez. The application and selection process for commission members is expected to take place in September and October.

“I’m just really, really proud of what we’ve done here,” Councilman Satinder Malhi, who will be the council liaison to the commission, said at the July 17 meeting. “This was the impetus for me to get up here, and I’m so proud that I have such a supportive council and a mayor and a staff and a community that recognize how important this work is.”

Fish kills at Hidden Lakes pond

The city reported last week that fish kills occurred at Hidden Lakes pond after an environmentally approved aquatic herbicide was applied by a contractor to control algae overgrowth. The city made the announcement in social media and website posts, saying the “sudden die off of algae” following the herbicide treatment “led to a rapid decline in dissolved oxygen, and in turn, resulted in fish kills.” Sustained periods of hot weather and the inefficiency of an old aerator that has since been replaced contributed to the algae problem, the city said.

In a Friday update on the situation, the city said the pond “still has lower dissolved oxygen levels, which for the time being may continue to affect fish, but no other wildlife is affected. The low oxygen levels are likely being caused by higher-than-average water temperatures, algae, and decomposition of dead algae on the pond bottom.”

A fish biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which stocks the pond with fish, visited the pond on Tuesday and will release a report at a later date. The city also said a new system of four underwater aerators, installed in June, should improve water circulation in the pond and “help to prevent future incidents.”

The reports from the city on the situation can be found at the following link: https://www.cityofmartinez.org/Home/Components/News/News/274/15?fbclid=IwY2xjawEcj5VleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHSNSMa0NLr76iI_-_oLp7HkRPhTuKBkHkDJdNJdHnffx2tQ6YNhaY1qm8A_aem_VT0QswtzphI1_TI8r6tQRw

Hometown Olympic update

Martinez’s Jewel Roemer and the rest of the USA women’s water polo team have advanced to Tuesday’s quarterfinals at the Paris Olympics. The USA went 3-1 in pool play, with Roemer scoring a goal in each game. Tuesday’s quarterfinal match against Hungary starts at 11:35 a.m. can be watched live on NBCOlympics.com and the streaming service Peacock.

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