Board OKs Effort to Rebuild Marin School, No Action on Ocean View

The Albany school board unanimously agreed Thursday night to authorize $719,909 for architectural plans for rebuilding Marin Elementary School, in hopes that the plans would enable the district to win state funding for a new school.

At the same time, the board backed away from preparing plans for rebuilding Ocean View Elementary.

In her report prepared for the board meeting, schools Superintendent Marla Stephenson had recommended moving forward on both seismically deficient schools, but at the meeting, she told the board that she was recommending the Marin school measure only.

"We have limited funding, and we have a very different situation at both schools," she said.

"We have a united parent and staff and Facilities Master Plan agreement that Marin Elementary School has outlived its educational life, that it is in dire need of replacement," she said.

"Ocean View is much more complex," she said. "... It has aspects of it that ... staff and parents really love, and it's going to take a longer process to do a really good job with a rebuild of Ocean View."

Board member Paul Black said parents and staff didn't like the preliminary plans for what a new Ocean View might look like because the multi-purpose room and library would become smaller, while the playground would be given unneeded additional space.

It appeared that some board members weren't ruling out retrofitting at least part of Ocean View, as opposed to a complete rebuild.

The $719,909 that was approved for Marin would go to WLC Architects. The amount represents 70 percent of the estimated cost of the architectural plans, which the district hopes would provide a planning document detailed enough to win state seismic mitigation funding and financial hardship funding, Stephenson said.

The expectation is that the state funding, if granted, would provide the remaining 30 percent of the cost of the architectural plans, in addition to the other funding, Stephenson said.

The total cost of a new Marin school is estimated at $21,402,421, Stephenson told the board on Dec. 10.

The WLC contract approved by the board for Marin includes options to stop the work at 25 percent and 50 percent "should something extraordinary happen," Stephenson said.

The actual contract language was not approved because it is still being reviewed by legal counsel, Stephenson said. The contract language will come back to the board for final approval, she said.

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