City to give School District up until the end of the year to come to terms on an agreement
Mountain View, Calif. — At the Tuesday, Sept. 12 meeting, the City Council voted to give the Mountain View Whisman School District one last opportunity to reach an agreement over joint use of school fields and facilities with the City of Mountain View. After seven years of negotiation and little movement over the last few months, MVWSD will now have until Dec. 31, 2023 to decide whether the City’s proposed terms are acceptable.
In introducing the item, City Manager Kimbra McCarthy said that making a recommendation to end the Joint Use Agreement brings no joy. McCarthy noted many other programs where the City and School District partner well together and stressed the City’s ongoing commitment to the success of our students. However, she stated that the City was put into a position through MVWSD’s words and actions to conclude that the School District was not working in partnership with the City on school fields, wanted to end the Joint Use Agreement, and that further negotiations would not be fruitful.
The original Joint Use Agreement was formed when MVWSD was two school districts. The 2000 Joint Use Agreement between the City and former Mountain View School District expires June 2025 while the one with the former Whisman School District is no longer in effect. Currently, the City provides maintenance of school fields and schedules community group use of the fields at the Bubb, Castro, Imai, Landels, Vargas, Monta Loma, Stevenson and Crittenden schools.
In a letter, dated May 3, 2023, to the City’s Parks and Recreation Commission, MVWSD Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph noted MVWSD’s concerns about the agreement and proposed potential solutions, including having the public rent school fields from the school district for various uses and the school district maintaining its fields at what he claims would be at a lower cost. The City Council voted to approve City staff’s recommendation to accept Superintendent Rudolph’s proposal to have the School District assume responsibility for school field rentals and maintenance, subject to providing the MVWSD Board of Trustees until Dec. 31 to formally decide whether they wish to continue the over 60-year partnership and enter into a new Joint Use Agreement on the terms and conditions proposed by the City.
The City currently pays approximately $1.5 million per year in staff time and utility costs to maintain MVWSD school fields. The City has also paid for capital improvements on publicly used school property, such as turf replacement, sprinkler system upgrades and public restrooms. The City’s capital investments to maintain and renovate the school fields and related facilities average about $450,000 annually. In addition, City staff has been scheduling school open space for youth and adult sports as well as organized community group use.
The City and MVWSD Joint Use Agreement that provides the community with access to the school district’s open space has existed for over 60 years.
The City has a long history of collaboration with MVWSD to provide the community with access to open space, recreational facilities and programs. These efforts include shared use of gymnasiums, installation of fields at Graham Middle School atop an underground reservoir, providing trail access to school sites, and implementing and funding shared programming such as the Beyond the Bell after-school program.
For more details, view the Council Report.
View the news release in Spanish and Russian.
About the City of Mountain View
Located between the Santa Cruz Mountains and San Francisco Bay, Mountain View is a diverse community with an estimated population of 83,601. Mountain View covers just over 12 square miles, featuring over 1,000 acres of park and wildlife areas including the 750-acre wildlife and recreation area called Shoreline at Mountain View. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Mountain View is home to a vibrant downtown and headquarters to many nationally and internationally known corporations including Google, LinkedIn, Intuit and NASA’s Ames Research Center. For more information, visit MountainView.gov.
Media Contacts
Lenka Wright, City of Mountain View Chief Communications Officer, 650-903-6615 or Lenka.Wright@mountainview.gov
