Millbrae trustees approve facilities guide after removing Lomita Park options; bond rollout explained

The Millbrae Elementary School District Board of Trustees voted Feb. 4 to approve a revised facilities master-plan update as a working guide after removing bulleted implementation options that had alarmed Lomita Park families.

The vote came during a meeting at Green Hills Elementary School where the board also heard a presentation on the legal and financial steps needed to access proceeds from Measure J, the $95 million school bond voters approved in the most recent election.

The revised plan approved by the board removes bullets A–D from pages 10–11 and was explicitly adopted “as a working document to be used as a guide, to be updated, with priorities and projects agreed upon by the board,” Trustee Chen said during the meeting. Superintendent Lisa Hickey told parents the district is listening and that individual projects will require future board approvals.

Why it matters: The facilities guide will shape which capital projects the district prioritizes and how Measure J dollars are drawn down. Board members and parents said the wording removed earlier had caused unnecessary fear that schools — particularly Lomita Park Elementary — might be closed or otherwise placed “on the table.” The district emphasized the document does not commit the board to specific projects without later actions.

Bond financing and oversight: Bond counsel Meredith Johnson (Dennis, Wolover & Kelly) and financial advisor Blake Beam (KNN Public Finance) briefed the board on the post-election steps to issue bonds. Johnson detailed the requirement to create a citizens’ oversight committee under Proposition 39, explaining members must review bond expenditures against the project list printed in the ballot materials and that the committee’s meetings are subject to the Brown Act.

“Their job really is to be kind of the loudspeaker for the community,” Meredith Johnson said, describing the oversight committee’s role in reviewing expenditures against the voter-approved project list.

Beam outlined a likely, high-level issuance plan calling for an initial Series A of roughly $20 million drawn down over about three years rather than issuing the full authorization at once. “The $95 million that Measure J authorized is now available,” Beam said, adding that the district will time issuances to match cash-flow and project schedules while keeping the tax-rate promise made to voters. He said the district assumes conservative assessed-value growth in modeling but noted local growth has historically exceeded the modeling assumption.

The board was told Moody’s currently rates the district at AA1, one notch below AAA, which officials said should help reduce borrowing costs by attracting a broader set of investors at lower interest rates.

Next steps and community process: Trustees said the approved document is intended to be a “living” guide. The board set an initial study session schedule for bond implementation and said it will hold additional public meetings, including outreach at school sites, before moving forward on large projects. Superintendent Hickey and trustees repeatedly emphasized that separate board actions will be required for architects, project designs, contracts and any major capital work.

Board action summary: The board approved the revised facilities master-plan update, with language removed as described and with the explicit direction that priorities and specific projects will return to the board for separate approvals.

Ending: District staff said more public meetings will be scheduled in February and March to review project priorities, the citizen oversight committee process and the timeline for the first bond issuance.