San Bruno Park School District talks parcel tax, term limits

Depending on polling results, both measures would come before voters either next March or November. Trustees favored putting the measures on the ballot at the same time. Polling to gauge support for the parcel tax measure would take place this September with results coming before the board in October and a vote on whether to officially seek the ballot measure happening in November.

Trustees said they’d favor a broader polling style that included calling, texting and emailing potential voters. The method, which would be conducted by a third-party contractor, would be more expensive than traditional phone polling but could potentially bring in more perspectives, Superintendent Matthew Duffy said.

The district currently does not have a parcel tax measure in place, unlike dozens of other districts in the county. Existing parcel tax measures range in amounts from $85 per parcel in Redwood City School District to about $1,417 per parcel in the Menlo Park City School District, according to numbers presented during Wednesday’s board meeting. Most parcel tax measures range between $118 a parcel to $330.

“This is a pretty sobering picture that you see across our region,” Duffy said about the average rates of parcel taxes per parcel across the county. 

With the additional funds, the district could attract and retain staff, support a variety of school programming, maintain smaller class sizes and conduct other work. Trustee Jennifer Blanco stressed the importance of speaking directly with parents about what they would look to see money spent on if the tax were to be approved. 

As for the trustee term limit measure, Blanco was the lone trustee to speak out against it, pushing back on assertions from other board members that the move would bring new perspectives and ideas to the district. 

Blanco also argued many trustees often vote yes on all items brought forward by a superintendent without questioning the logic behind the measure, further disputing claims term limits would bring fresh ideas to the board. She noted she has often raised new ideas while on the board that never make it to public discussion.

“For me, at this point, I just don’t know why we have board members, honestly, if we’re just going to be approving everything, not doing anything different, doing whatever the superintendent wants,” Blanco said. “The narrative of what we should be speaking on is new people, that’s it, that’s all it is, new people who are keeping these seats warm. It’s not so much the fresh ideas, fresh perspectives.” 

Alternatively, Linda Mason, the former vice mayor of San Bruno and the wife of former school board Trustee Andrew Mason, argued in favor of term limits that she said could help remove ineffective members. She noted city residents strongly supported a city measure to implement term limits last November. About 82% of voters cast ballots in favor of limiting councilmembers to no more than 12 consecutive years of service on the board. 

Ultimately, the other four trustees agreed that term limits would be a benefit for the district and spoke in favor of mirroring the city’s 12-year-term-limit measure. Doing so would create continuity for voters and allow new trustees to work with those with a historical knowledge of the district. 

“We have a lot of positions, elected and not, that don’t have term limits and that could be very damaging to the body that they govern,” board President Adriana Shea said. “It’s also incredibly difficult to unseat an incumbent, particularly for school board, because, unfortunately, the public does not pay as close attention as we would like them to with public education. So it’s one of the most difficult seats, the incumbent seats, to defeat, and I just think that the voters should decide.”