Sonoma Valley school district boardmember refuses vote

Kelly's inaction on contract will tally as ‘abstention,' says lawyer|

A meeting of mostly procedural items on the agenda at the Sonoma Valley Unified School District’s board meeting on Feb. 14, turned rather contentious when new boardmember John Kelly refused to vote on one of the items.

Kelly wasn’t happy with the contract the board was set to approve with Counterpoint Construction Services, the district’s construction management firm. Kelly pointed out that the boilerplate contract wasn’t in its final form and that there were boxes in the contract that should have been checked that weren’t.

“We should have contracts in their final form in the future,” he said.

Board president Dan Gustafson said Kelly’s points were “well taken.” And boardmember Britta Johnson agreed that the contracts should be more complete. “But moving forward, we need to stay in our timelines,” she said.

Kelly wanted to the board to postpone action on the matter until next month.

“This is for Measure E work,” Kelly said. “That’s 24 months out. I can’t see a rush to do this tonight.”

But when it came time to vote – the measure passed 3-0 – Kelly refused to vote, nor did he abstain.

The next day, Sonoma Valley Unified School District Superintendent Louann Carlomagno had to consult the district attorney to see how the vote should be tallied. The attorney told Carlomagno that the non-vote should go down as an abstention.

Not only did the board approve the Counterpoint contract, it also approved contracts with two architectural firms – QKA and Strata. In all three instances, Kelly quizzed the representative of the respective firms if any employee was related to anyone in the school district. All three said they have an employee married to someone employed by the district.

One of Counterpoint’s employees is the adult son of Lissa Juricich, Carlomagno’s administrative assistant; one of QKA’s architects is married to Sonoma Valley High School Principal Kathleen Hawing; and a volunteer communications coordinator for the district is married to Bennett Martin, one of Strata’s principals.

Kelly didn’t voice any objection and didn’t see any conflicts of interest, but he just wanted the information made public nonetheless. “There’s no evidence of conflict of interest,” he said, “just the appearance.”

The board also heard about upcoming projects.

Among the projects slated for this summer is roofing and HVAC work at Sassarini, Flowery, Prestwood elementary schools and the Sonoma Charter School, along with parking and traffic-flow projects at Altimira and Sonoma Valley High, and district office data upgrades, the College and Career Center and the ag farm infrastructure.

The estimated price for the projects is in excess of $8.6 million. The big projects are the HVAC and roof replacement at Prestwood Elementary School for $2.1 million; the ag farm infrastructure at $1.8 million; the new drop off at the high school for $1.6 million and the Altimira parking lot at $1.2 million.

The board also heard about other projects – not funded by Measure H, the biggest of which is the Adele Harrison Middle School all-weather sports field for a little more than $2.1 million.

The district will also start looking at 2018 projects including Dunbar HVAC replacement, Sassarini roof and HVAC replacement and Altimira HVAC replacement.

Also, Steve Kwok, with the district’s architectural firm, QKA, had a PowerPoint presentation about the all-weather field with cork infill that’ll go in behind Adele Harrison Middle School.

The field has already received approval from the Division of the State Architect three months earlier than expected.

The project will go out to bid in March and April with construction starting sometime in June. The estimated completion date would be mid-October.

Three other county high schools have new fields – Analy, El Molino and Casa Grande with fields at Maria Carrillo and Petaluma in design.

Email Bill at bill.hoban@sonomanews.com.

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