[Editor's Note: The following letter was submitted to Belmont Patch by a group of Belmont residents. If you would like to submit a letter to the editor, please email it to joan.dentler@patch.com.]
Dear Editor:
We have lived in Belmont for years. We’ve raised children, owned homes, and run businesses here. We have also been engaged in Belmont civic and community activities at all levels. We want you to know why we—and many fellow residents—are excited about Crystal Springs Uplands School’s proposal to turn a vacant office site on Davis Drive into a beautiful, green middle school campus that benefits our community. We are not receiving any personal benefit and are not directly connected to the school. We simply care deeply about Belmont and its future.
First, we believe that the use of this site for a middle school is an excellent and better use than commercial alternatives. The campus will have a lower intensity than potential commercial uses of the property. Crystal Springs will significantly reduce the square footage of the buildings, remove hardscape, construct energy efficient buildings and install an all-weather soccer field to which the community will have access. Also, the majority of the owners or property representatives of neighboring commercial buildings on Davis Drive support the proposal.
Second, the financial benefits to Belmont are substantial. Crystal Springs’ guaranteed annual payment of $250,000 ensures fiscal neutrality to the City of Belmont and exceeds current tax revenue collected from the site. This is enough to allow the Belmont school district to not suffer from loss of property taxes, and is also likely higher than what alternative commercial tenants would provide. Crystal Springs has been in business 60 years, and this annual payment is a phenomenal opportunity to secure a stable long-term revenue stream. Crystal Springs is also offering a one-time payment of $1 million that Belmont can use to make a real difference to its infrastructure, services, parks, and schools. In addition, building the campus will inject $33 million into the local economy, creating 200 new jobs as a result of the construction in Belmont and boosting economic activity.
We are convinced that the benefits of the proposal overcome the concerns that have been raised. We know that any business that moves into the Davis Drive office park will generate traffic, but Crystal Springs has a long history of being a considerate, quiet neighbor in a completely residential area. It is planning an early start time to avoid overlap with Ralston Middle School and peak commuting hours. Belmont’s own studies confirm that the school will not have a material impact on existing Ralston Avenue traffic issues. Plus, the school has agreed to long-term monitoring to make sure that its traffic never becomes an issue. It’s hard to imagine a commercial business doing the same.
You can learn more about the Crystal Springs proposal and its benefits to Belmont’s residents at www.csus.org/belmont.
The City Council will consider the project in October. We encourage you to add your voice to the many supporters who have already spoken and ask our elected representatives to approve this project. You can email the Council members at CityCouncil@Belmont.gov. This is important for Belmont’s future!
Thank you for taking the time to understand the huge benefits to Belmont of approving the Crystal Springs project.
Ray and Jennifer Bilsey
Fox School Parents
Amanda Greco
Cipriani Neighborhood ResidentStephen Kelley Co-Commissioner, AYSO Belmont-Redwood Shores
Jeffrey Selman
RMS and Cipriani Elementary ParentGeorge Burgess
President, Belmont Chamber of CommerceJeffrey Hyman
Former Vice Chair, Belmont Finance CommissionElsa Schafer
Belmont Heights Resident Former Fox Parent/PTA President
Also, can you please explain how much Crystal Springs has proposed giving directly to the Belmont school district? Or are you assuming that the City will share its revenue with the school district?
First off the letter claims that the majority of businesses on Davis Drive support the project. I work on Davis Drive and everyone in my company opposes the project and i have not spoken to anyone in favor of it. I would call this a flat out lie. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the letter but it fails to address the most important issue. This is a business park! It is zoned a business park because it it is for businesses, not schools. As a business park we have trucks including 18 wheelers in and out all day long and they want to put middle school children in the proximity of these trucks? That is a tragedy just waiting to happen, and it will! Schools are separated from business for a reason, putting them together is asking for trouble for both. I could double this comment but am limited by the amount of characters allowed.
"From: George Zabelle <zabelle@comcast.net> Date: October 10, 2012, 3:33:59 PM PDT To: CityCouncil@belmont.gov Subject: CSUS Honorable Members of the City Council, Copied from the CSUS website...Please note the statement re snacks & lunch. Seems I heard from the CSUS people that the students would bring business to the Carlmont Shopping Center in the form of food purchases. I'm not so sure of that in view of the fact CSUS offers snacks & Lunches as part of the student fees. Tuition and Fees Tuition and fees for the 2012-13 school year is $35,700. Included in the fees are daily snack and lunch, Parent Association fees, most field trips, PE uniforms, transportation to and from Caltrain, required Middle School trips, and various other school-related costs. Students purchase their own books, which usually cost between $400 and $600 per year for Middle School and $600 to $800 for Upper School. Respectfully, George Zabelle"
From what I understand the school is going to be using food services in Belmont for the luches and snacks. Also, did you note " transportation to and from Caltrain" . Just a couple of thoughts.
The letter does not claim that a majority of businesses on Davis Drive support the project. The letter states, "the majority of the owners or property representatives of neighboring commercial buildings on Davis Drive support the proposal." That is a true statement. Also, please note that Ralston Middle School is already almost as close to the office park as CSUS will be. I have yet to hear of an 18 wheeler causing great harm to any Ralston students. Having a school next to a business park is not a unique condition in California (as we learned at the City Council meeting last month.) I do not see any increased risk of harm to students (or 18 wheelers.) I happen to know some of the signatories of this letter and am offended that you would impugn their integrity without some sort of evidence. To my knowledge, the signatories of this letter have no personal stake in CSUS being built. Instead, they all believe that the development is what's best for Belmont. As do I and many, many others. Mr. Brennan - I think you misunderstand one of the potential benefits that has been mentioned by supporters of the project. We do not believe that CSUS students will leave school and go down the hill to purchase lunch at Carlmont Village. Rather, we believe that it is likely that caregivers, parents, and some students will visit the shops around drop off and pick up time for coffee, snacks, ice cream...etc.
In regard to the statement made on the CSUS website supporting the proposed CSUS Davis Dr. campus. Can someone please explain the,"Proposed Middle School benefit of $12.5M per year spent in the local economy" and how it was arrived at? I calculated that if 240 students + 40 staff = 280 divided into $12.5M = $44642.85 would need to be spent annually by each of the 280 to reach the stated $12.5 amount. I was born at night but not last night, it's time to stop the deception. Respectfully, George Zabelle The following was taken directly from the CSUS website at the Q&A section. Q. What additional value will the school bring? A. Project construction benefits of $33M, including $22M in direct benefits, and 200 jobs, including 135 direct jobs supported on site. The construction jobs generated and created by the project will be a windfall for local employment. Proposed Middle School benefits of $12.5M per year spent in the local economy, with $7.9M in direct expenditures, 65 direct ongoing jobs, and stimulation of the local economy.
They are good questions and need to be answered. I wish someone would. Thanks,
Essentially it is this: For every dollar spent an additional % is re-spent within the local community. The main variable is the percentage and it varies by geographical location. In the same fashion for every job created a portion of another is created. Again the percentage is the main variable.. To project the increase or decrease in sales and jobs most proposals will include such data provided by third parties. The highly respected company that CSUS used to provide San Mateo County percentage increase(.58 & .5) factors is described in the next comment. Hard costs for construction is estimated to be $22,000,000. Multiply that by 1.58 and you get more than $33 million. I believe CSUS has provided a chart to the City showing the actual figures. I will try to get that chart uploaded to Patch.
"Our mission is to provide the most trusted and comprehensive information, services, and decision support tools for economic analysis." MIG, Inc (formerly Minnesota IMPLAN Group, Inc.) is the sole-source provider of the IMPLAN® (IMpact analysis for PLANning) economic impact modeling system. IMPLAN is used to create complete, extremely detailed Social Accounting Matrices and Multiplier Models of local economies. MIG, Inc. provides software tools, region-specific data, and outstanding technical support to enable users to make in-depth examinations of state, multi-county, county, sub-county, and metropolitan regional economies. MIG, Inc. has been developing complex localized databases, conducting IMPLAN training workshops and distributing IMPLAN software to public and private organizations since 1993. S tate & Local Governments may find a variety of reasons to use IMPLAN in their day-to-day activities. IMPLAN can assist you in understanding the potential fiscal impacts of policy decisions, cutbacks, attractions and Events, and potential furlows. It can also help when weighing the benefits of competing programs,* and of using industry tax abatements to draw local companies, by providing a clearer view of the economic portion of the picture. Because IMPLAN does track the tax collections associated to projects and employee spending, IMPLAN can also help your department examine the potential revenues associated to a project.
As covered in previous posts on the Patch, you confused County results with City of Belmont benefits. In view of all the smoke and mirrors used, the $ benefits are suspect.
"Now, the qualifying factors are the multipliers to be used. In the case of CSUS, they apparently decided that for every $1.00 they spend an additional $.58 will be generated in the County. The additional revenue to the County is $4.6 thus, turning the $7.9 mil dollars into $12.5M." Belmont is a small city in a large County. How can you calculate theoretical benefits for the County and apply them to the City of Belmont? Hillsborough is also in San Mateo county; how much will Hillsborough benefit? The people who are going to spend the money are already living in the county I presume, so these people are not going to suddenly spend more. Please give some practical examples, so everybody can understand where these people are going to spend the money in Belmont. The cities you mention are San Francisco and Austin, big cities where there are lots of choices in expensive shopping. Those are not a comp for Belmont.
At least George Burgess has attempted to answer some of the questions.
Congratulations. I hope that you continue to chuckle and prosper.
Also, the slowdowns from CSUS would be worse than Ralston Middle School because the traffic light at Davis stops all traffic on Ralston, while Ralston Middle School has a turnout lane so traffic at least continues to move in one lane each direction even though traffic backs up into the other.