> ## 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. # Measure BB committee delays middle school construction funding decisions - URL: https://www.smdp.com/not-so-fast/ - Published: 2008-01-09T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T17:52:59.000Z - Author: Melody Hanatani - Tags: Education, Malibu, #archive-import *Advisory committee postpones spending Measure BB money* SMMUSD HDQTRS Students in the public school district’s three middle schools will have to wait a while longer before they see new classrooms or athletic facilities. But that’s a fate they might actually prefer. The Measure BB District Advisory Committee on Monday decided to postpone making further recommendations to the Board of Education on how it should allocate construction funding until schematic drawings and a cost estimate for the projects are available. The committee also pledged to prioritize secondary schools, including middle schools. This came shortly after a group of students and teachers from Lincoln Middle School pleaded that the advisory committee postpone allocating the remainder of the Measure BB bond money until its members take a tour of each of the middle and elementary schools to learn about the physical challenges facing each campus. The advisory committee was debating how to spend the remaining unallocated Measure BB funds — roughly $60 million. The Board of Education already acted on an earlier advisory committee recommendation last October, earmarking $57 million to Santa Monica High School, $13.5 million to Malibu High School and $27.5 million to Edison Language Academy. “It’s a rash and bad decision that the BB committee would give this money without touring all of the schools thoroughly,” said William Wolf, a Lincoln eighth grader. “Lincoln is a great school, but there’s still several things that need fixing.” The students named several Lincoln facilities that need some attention,most notably the track and field, which Wolf claimed was the cause of injuries sustained by several students. Some students pointed out that the outdated facilities can directly have an impact on their quality of education. Chace Beech, an eighth grader, noted that one of the buildings on the Lincoln campus does not have a bathroom and whenever a student in that structure needs to use the lavatory, they have to cut through campus, taking away valuable classroom time. “There’s a great energy about the school... but there are a lot of problems with our campus,” Beech said. The suggestion by parents and students to hold off on earmarking funds until all of the campuses are visited was met by mixed reactions from committee members, some believing if that was the case, then all of the school sites should’ve been toured before any money was allocated in October. Several of the parents and committee members that spoke out against stalling the process were from Malibu, a community that became upset after the Board of Education cut Malibu’s appropriation from $27.5 million — a district staff recommendation — to $13.5 million — a Measure BB District Advisory Committee recommendation. “To stop this process I think would be a great, great mistake,” said Laura Rosenthal, a Malibu parent and committee member. Rosenthal had made a motion earlier in the meeting to allocate funding to all the middle schools, including Malibu Middle School, which parents say is in need of its own separate classroom building, which would be seperate from the high school. That motion was superseded by the motion that was eventually acted upon. Colleen Baum, a Malibu parent who made a presentation to the school board in November asking it to reconsider the appropriation to Malibu High School, took another chance at the advisory committee, asking it restore funding. The committee members took a tour of the Malibu campus, which doubles as both a middle and high school late last year. “I want to explode because there are people talking about putting off allocating funds (until all the schools are visited),” Baum said. Superintendent Dianne Talarico reminded committee members that the district spent more than $1.5 million to work with three consultants — Harley Ellis Devereaux, Concordia and Sidewalk Studio — to draft the Facilities Master Plan, a 20-year-outline guiding the future of the facilities in the district. “We can tour all we want to tour, but we did pay a lot of money to have experts in the field to do that,” Talarico said. Several committee members were in favor of visiting the schools, including attorney Chris Harding who said he learned much more about Malibu High School in his recent tour than he did in reading the Facilities Master Plan. “The students at Lincoln want (us) to come see the school,” he said. “I can’t come up with a justification for telling them no.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 9, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/010908.pdf?ref=smdp.com)