Video Transcript:

JOANNE FARYON (Host): This week, the San Diego Unified School Board voted to help the City of San Diego finance a downtown library. The board voted to spend $20 million  toward creating a district-run charter school within the new building. KPBS reporter Ana Tintacolis has been covering the story and she joins me now. Ana, the board just went through a long budget process, cutting tens of millions of dollars, where did they get $20 million?

ANA TINTACOLIS (Reporter): This $20 million comes from Proposition S, which is the district's $2.1 billion school bond measure. So it's one part of this larger bond. The bond itself is aimed to go towards repairs and modernization, that's the goal of this bond. The $20 million was set aside, not necessarily for a school, but what was called "educational opportunities" in downtown San Diego. So when this opportunity came up, they wanted to channel that $20 million towards a possible charter school in downtown San Diego in a library.

FARYON: Did anyone object to spending the money in this way? Because there might be some debate in terms of the intent of Proposition S money.

TINTACOLIS: Yeah, there was a lot of back and forth on the board itself. Three school trustees supported the idea, two did not. It was a divided school board. Those who are in support of it say this is a great time for the district to take an innovative approach to education, to reach out to students in the downtown area. There's about 5,000 kids living in the district area, so they thought it was a great chance to finally bring education to downtown, something that's sorely needed. But also, it goes with this idea of having a beautiful library and having this beautiful chance to do something totally out of the box for the district and the city, sort of an interesting collaboration.

FARYON: So we're talking about a charter school, was there any discussion in terms of what kind of charter school this would be?

TINTACOLIS: Well that's the thing. Usually the whole argument is that charter schools are kind of a grassroots organization. Usually they come to the school board saying, "Okay, this is our mission, this is our theme this is where we want to go, please can you help us find a facility?" This time, it was more top down, where the district was saying, "We want a charter school but we have no place, we don't know what it's going to be, but we want one," so it was sort of an interesting flip to the process.

FARYON: This is also a high school, not an elementary school, is there concern that you're going to have a high school, a lot of noisy teenagers in the middle of the library?

TINTACOLIS: No one has really brought that issue up just yet, but I'm sure that will be a case moving forward. It's interesting how the city and the district has been molding this idea as we go along. Initially the money was set aside for possibly an elementary school, that changed to a high school, but now its changed into a charter high school because of building codes and violations, you can't have young kids on the sixth and seventh floors, you can't have a public high school with earthquake conditions, but you can have a charter school without those rules because they are a bit more exempt than your traditional school.

FARYON: Thank you, Ana Tintocalis.

[ The Editors ]

Joining me now to weigh in with their comments on a new downtown library are Ricky Young, government editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune and Tony Perry, San Diego bureau chief for the L.A. Times. Ricky Young, can San Diego afford this project, a new downtown library, now?

RICKY YOUNG (San Diego Union-Tribune): Well it certainly helps, what you were just talking with Ana about, that they got the $20 million from the school district, that joins another $80 million in downtown redevelopment money, $20 million of a state grant, but the missing piece is a good deal of money that needs to be raised in the private sector. That effort had stalled the entire library project for some time, there's hope that with the new infusion of money with the school district that they can move forward and show funders that might have held back "hey we can do this" and then raise that private money. But the City Council, which moved the project forward through a committee this week, raised some concerns about this being the main problem, can we raise the rest of this money?

FARYON: Exactly, you said "hope." There's hope that they're going to raise the rest of this money. What if they don't? What happens to what has already been put on the? And the rest of money doesn't come through? Who's on the hook Tony?

TONY PERRY (Los Angeles Times): Well that's the risk. In many ways the City of San Diego is on the hook. I know it's not public money, but it's public property, redevelopment money, money from the state, money from the school district, it's all public money. To do this, you're going to have to take a leap, a sort of Kierkegaardian financial leap here, of faith. And the City of San Diego, the elected officials, and to a lesser extent, the electorate  isn't real crazy on taking leaps of faith. This is a very pinch-a-penny, cheap community, and unless we have a spokesman that comes out and says "here's why we need, here's the value of this library, not the cost of it, here's the value of it," I don't think this thing is going to make it. and so far I have not seen that spokesman emerge.

FARYON: Ricky, why don't you take a stab at it? Why do we need a library? What's wrong with the old library?

YOUNG: Well, interestingly, Ben Hueso, the council president made a big speech regarding a downtown City Hall about how in difficult economic times you can make an investment the way a lot of public agencies did in the Depression, to create jobs and what have you. I think you may see some of those themes come out in terms of the library, saying "Let's build something we can be proud of," as Tony notes that is not, lately, been the way of doing business in San Diego, where the leadership tends to say, "We'll do it, if it doesn't cost us any money." I think it would take a little different sort of feel to keep this project moving forward.

FARYON: Is a downtown library a good place for a high school?

PERRY: Sure, why not. I speak as someone who shepherded two youth through highs school and into college. We can control them if need be. The school district seems to think it is the place for a charter school. The whole issue of charter schools and whether the district ought to run them or if it guts the whole idea is yet to be determined. It's a way to finance this thing. Absent the need to find $20 million, I don't think anyone would say, "We'll put a high school on the eighth and ninth floors."

YOUNG: It does seem like it was done a little backwards, where it was done mainly to have the school fund the library as opposed to because it was the best answer for a school. To me, it's just hard to picture a high school on the sixth and seventh floor of the library, the kids being quiet, and where do you play the football? There's a lot that goes into a high school that you picture going on on a high school campus, more so than on two floors on a downtown office tower or library. 

PERRY: It's a schoolbrary! It's going to be a hybrid. They're not going to play football indoors, I think they'll have access to playing fields elsewhere.