EDITOR: Carolyn McKennan, superintendent of the Morgan Hill
School District gets an
“F” on her latest assignment. Recently, the superintendent was
questioned about signing a $4.5 million agreement with Jacobs
Construction to “get the Sobrato plans as quickly as possible.”
EDITOR:
Carolyn McKennan, superintendent of the Morgan Hill School District gets an “F” on her latest assignment. Recently, the superintendent was questioned about signing a $4.5 million agreement with Jacobs Construction to “get the Sobrato plans as quickly as possible.”
Here’s the interesting fact. If the superintendent had read the original Agreement for Total Program Management Services (The original agreement was with Serdrup Construction which Jacobs purchased) signed on March 22, 1999, she could have found the answer in Article 2, page 11.
Article 2, 2.8 “Sverdrup (now Jacobs) shall provide the Owner (Morgan Hill School District) with a complete set of reproducible designs, plans, specifications, studies, drawing, estimates and other documents or any other works of authorship fix in any tangible medium of expression, including but not limited to physical drawings, data magnetically or otherwise recorded on computer disks, or other writings prepared or caused to be prepared by (Jacobs) pursuant to this agreement, … .”
Article 2, 2.9 “This agreement creates a non-exclusive and perpetual license for (Morgan Hill School District) to copy, use, modify, reuse or sub-license any and all copyrights, designs and other intellectual property embodied in plans, specifications, studies, drawings, estimates and other documents … .”
On Feb. 24, the Board of Trustees ratified an agreement with Turner Construction for construction management services to complete the Sobrato construction project. In layman’s terms, Jacobs was fired and Turner got their job.
Here’s where it gets confusing. On April 10, 2003, McKennan signed an agreement with Jacobs for $4.5 million “… to get Sobrato plans as quickly as possible.” Shouldn’t the district have sued Jacobs for the construction plans rather then sign an agreement to pay $4.5 million to Jacobs to get a copy of what was the district’s in the first place?
Last year I wrote a letter to the editor headlined “Who’s In Charge?” It would appear that Carolyn McKennan is still in charge of the Morgan Hill School District and will remain so as long as senior board members Tom Kinoshita, Del Foster, Jan Masuda and George Panos continue to offer her their loyalty and undying support.
What about their elected fiscal responsibility to the voters of this community? Major financial blunders, supported by Kinoshita, Foster, Masuda and Panos, have become the rule not the exception in the operation of the district.
In the real world, the performance of the superintendent and the majority of the Board of Trustees, in my opinion, would be considered gross mismanagement of public funds.
Harlan Warthen,
Morgan Hill
