Sky’s the limit in these parts

The bond effort is the largest placed before an electorate in an elementary or secondary public school district in San Mateo County history.

Because the measure will be decided in a general election, it will require only a 55% yes vote for approval. District authorities are banking on getting over that threshold even during tough economic times with inflation raging at a 40-year high.

Sequoia’s bold move has history behind it. Over the last 25 years, the district’s generous citizenry has approved five previous bond issues; their combined value is $633 million (well over $1 billion when interest, fees and other costs are factored in).

At the other end of the county, to the north in South San Francisco, public education authorities have placed their own big bond on the Nov. 8 ballot

It’s a whopper too. The South San Francisco Unified School District measure seeks $436 million from its taxpayers. A $162 million bond was OK’d by district voters a dozen years ago.

If approved by the voters in the two districts, the money from the latest bonds would be used to renovate and modernize facilities and update equipment, among other uses. Here’s a brief comparison of the two districts (based on the most recent data from the state’s Department of Education website):

• Sequoia Union — 8,400 students (average daily attendance); eight schools (four large comprehensive high schools and four smaller schools); $22,000 per student in operating expenditures.

• South San Francisco Unified — 8,200 students (average daily attendance); 15 schools (two large comprehensive high schools and 13 other schools); $15,515 per student in operating expenditures.

PROJECTIONS CAN BE WRONG: Don’t treat projections with unblinking acceptance. Not all predictions based on available data are necessarily valid. Time will tell.

That caution was confirmed decades ago after regional government agencies forecast this optimistic figure: Between the early 1960s and now, San Mateo County’s population would soar from 450,000 residents to 1.7 million. Didn’t happen. Won’t happen.

The reality has turned out to be roughly 750,000 in 2022. Most of the Peninsula is off limits to developers. Open space has priority. Trees over tenants. That’s unlikely to change.

For some, this condition is a blessing. For others, it’s a cause for unhappiness.

THE SAN FRANCISCO PENINSULA: It was probably inevitable because San Mateo County does not possess the automatic convention/tourist name recognition of San Francisco.

This age-old reality is in spite of the latter’s well-documented, grim societal afflictions, including large homeless encampments, rampant public drug use, the use of sidewalks as handy toilets and disturbing crime statistics.

Nonetheless, the San Mateo County/Silicon Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau has quietly changed its online moniker to “San Francisco Peninsula.”

It’s a move intended to prod more eyeballs to its website, to make the region’s geographic footprint clearer and easier to grasp.

A FOSTER CITY SALES RECORD: Not long ago, a large, four-bedroom, three-bath home on the Foster City lagoon sold for a reported $3.68 million. It was said to be a record for a residential property in that island community.

For some perspective, nearly 60 years ago when houses were coming onto the market for the first time there, a similar dwelling would have cost about $40,000 ($350,000 in today’s dollars).

Again: “Location, location, location.”

DON LEYDIG AND DICK VERMEIL: Still in the early 1960s, Don Leydig was an outstanding football player for a new, young coach named Dick Vermeil at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo.

Leydig became the school’s principal 30 years later. Vermeil became a successful head coach in the NFL. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last week. Leydig and several teammates attended the ceremony in Canton, Ohio.

Old Knights never forget.

Email John Horgan at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.