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Published on 05/25/1998 All articles from this issue

Council to pursue joint use with school district

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue / Town Crier Staff Writer

Even though school trustees said no to a city gym at Covington School, Los Altos City Council members agreed to pursue their dream of some kind of city-school joint use for recreation.

"It becomes self fulfilling if we say we give up on joint use now," said Councilman Francis La Poll at a May 26 city council study session that considered joint use of city and school district facilities.

"We can still let people know that's what we're interested in," said Mayor Kris Casto.

Earlier this month, Los Altos School District trustees told the city council they did not want a city gymnasium-recreation center on the district-owned Covington School site. The district needs to re-open the site as a school and parents did not want the city facility there, school board members said.

This decision came after school folks had spent nearly a year studying and identifying the needs of the district.

The city owns a 5.5-acre site at 401 Rosita Ave., which adjoins Covington, that the city wants to develop into a city recreation center, with playing fields and a gymnasium.

For six months in 1997, an 18-member citizen task force studied what might be possible for developing the Rosita site.

Their unanimous conclusion: joint use with the schools, using Covington for the gymnasium to maximize playing field space at Rosita.

"Joint use is a land multiplier for us," said Councilman King Lear.

"Joint usage is a mandate," Peter Johnson told the council. Johnson has lobbied the city for years for more and better playing fields for youth sports. He also served on the citizen task force that developed the joint-use plan.

Dick Hasenpflug, chairman of the school district's citizen's advisory committee for finance, told the council that the district "would like it if you didn't limit yourself to Covington for joint-use options."

The council appointed Casto and La Poll to sit down with school representatives to identify issues and discover what options for joint use might be possible.