> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Answers for school problems needed in 2003 - URL: https://www.smdp.com/answers-for-school-problems-needed-in-2003/ - Published: 2003-01-03T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T01:15:49.000Z - Author: Bill Bauer - Tags: Opinion, Malibu, #archive-import, Homeless As we lurch into the new year, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is facing its worst fiscal crisis with millions of dollars in financial shortfall. Last year, school supporters dreamed up a flat $300 parcel tax increase (Measure EE) to generate revenue for schools. Measure EE was defeated by voters because some say it was too much money and unfair. Now, school supporters and district administrators are back to the drawing board. This time, the new ad-hoc parcel tax group, also know as “Save Our Schools Committee,” is mulling SMMUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s recommendation of an annual $144 residential and $675 commercial/industrial parcel tax. Sound familiar? It should. The proposal is from pretty much the same crew that came up with Measure EE. Do any of these good folks realize that one of the most obvious sources of funding is the cities of Santa Monica and Malibu? Santa Monica’s annual budget is around $380 million — one of the highest municipal budgets, per capita, in the country. But when you have the same gaggle of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights political cronies and education advocates repeatedly recycling from committee to committee, fresh ideas are as much a possibility as finding the Hope diamond buried under the Samohi parking lot. Last week, one SOSC member told the committee that he’d heard a citizens group was planning its own school referendum that would require Santa Monica and Malibu to directly subsidize the SMMUSD, thereby eliminating the need for new school parcel taxes. Funding our schools with existing resources? What a novel idea. There’s no reason why Santa Monica and Malibu shouldn’t contribute 2 or 3 percent of their annual budgets to the schools. The SOSC, school board and SMMUSD administration should embrace this as an obvious and common sense way to deal with the present crisis, but they probably won’t. There are just too many egos in the way and special interests to protect. Being that SMRR members control both the school board and the city government, you’d think they would be working as a team to help our kids. Instead, it looks as if they are protecting each other’s turf. The school SMRRs and their sycophants seem to follow an unwritten law that they won’t ask for money from their SMRR compatriots in the city who have earmarked funds for their own ideological social agendas. And we all know that most of the members of our City Council have their own personal priorities. Every year, $2 million goes to homeless services. Millions have been committed for the latest round of pedestrian enhancements approved for major boulevards. The city is on a buying spree. It recently spent $3.7 million for property at 15th Street and Broadway Avenue, and an adjoining residential lot on 15th Street for, you guessed it, affordable housing for people who want to live here and now reside outside of the community. The city is negotiating to purchase a $5-million commercial property on 1751- 1753 Cloverfield Blvd. supposedly for a homeless services center. Keep in mind, this takes property OFF the tax rolls. The city is eyeing the Fisher/Malibu Lumber property on Colorado Boulevard between 14th and 17th streets as well as other commercial properties in the neighborhood for more affordable housing. Tens of millions of dollars for land and millions more for construction for what many call “SMRR voter base rental housing” is being spent, but only chump change is doled out for our children? How about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the city gives annually to the Bayside District Corp. and to the Pier Restoration Corp. to promote their respective venues? And the tens of thousands of dollars the city hands out to neighborhood groups? You tell me. Is all of this more important than our children’s education? Apparently those who run our city and the schools would rather you pay through the nose then cut their own pet pork. As long as they think that you’ll keep shelling it out, they’ll keep those taxes, fees and assessments coming — all the while they hope you won’t notice that most of the money doesn’t even benefit you, me or our children. There are more than enough resources already at hand that can be used to support the schools. So, why, in tough times, would any thinking person contemplate increasing taxes and driving citizens deeper into debt? Our future is in our schools. Let’s hope in the new year our City Council will, during upcoming mid-year budget deliberations, make the tough decisions, step up to the plate and go to bat for us for a change. The time to reorganize priorities has never been better. And those supporting the schools must stop the political posturing and do the right thing or they will find out, once again, that the people will call the shots. Bill Bauer is a longtime Santa Monica resident and a freelance writer. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 3, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/010303.pdf?ref=smdp.com)