Citizens of Beverly Hills this November will vote on a $260 million bond to fund the second phase of a massive school construction program. Despite opposition to the Beverly Hills Unified School District’s (BHUSD) five-school renovation project, the proponents of Measure Y stress the need for immediate funding to complete the project without incurring additional costs.

“With Measure Y money at El Rodeo [School], we’ll do a digital library, administration buildings and classroom buildings, and put in a new media library and subterranean parking for staff and the community,” said Howard Goldstein, president of the Beverly Hills board of education. “With measure Y money, we’ll have El Rodeo completed.”

Construction at El Rodeo began last October and construction at Horace Mann Elementary School started two years prior. Both were funded by a 2008 ballot initiative called Measure E that secured an even larger $334 million bond that launched the construction program.

“I’ve been on the board three years,” Goldstein said. “At that point [in 2013], all they had done was a renovation of the Ron Brown Auditorium at Horace Mann Elementary School. When I got on the board, I started moving forward with a construction program.”

If Measure Y does not pass, Horace Mann School’s renovation would still be completed, but the other four schools would be left only partially renovated. Measure Y funds are needed to keep the project moving.

“I don’t see a downside to Measure Y,” Goldstein said.

Others do. Opponents of the measure accuse the board of breaking a promise in Measure E not to increase property taxes. Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch, who opposes the measure, said the board increased taxes twice without showing the results they promised. He called it a “breach of trust.”

“They got a ton of money before,” Mirisch said. “They should keep their promise.”

Mirisch said although Beverly Hills schools have seen improvement, the board has not acted “in a fiscally responsible manner.”

BHUSD administers five schools (Beverly Vista, El Rodeo, Hawthorne, Horace Mann and Beverly Hills High School) for a city of 34,000 citizens whose income and education levels are well above state averages, according to the California State Library. Despite its glitzy reputation, according to Goldstein, Beverly Hills schools are not state of the art.

“Our schools are 80 to 100 years old, not renovated or seismically updated,” Goldstein said.

A California report cited 14 buildings at all five BHUSD schools as being “subject to potential collapse” by a moderate earthquake. In Sept. 2015, El Rodeo and Hawthorne schools closed for multiple days due to seismic vulnerability.

“We have issues with plumbing, when the acidity level goes up you start getting issues of lead in the water. Environmental health is just as important as the structural element,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein added he’s heard opponents suggest the board should wait two years on the second stage of the renovation that Measure Y would fund.

“If we wait, because of cost escalation, you’re talking an additional $10 million. I’d rather put that [money] into a building. Waiting doesn’t make any sense,” Goldstein said.

In September, the Beverly Hills PTA officially endorsed Measure Y, which Goldstein insists is cost effective and necessary to guarantee the type of community Beverly Hills residents desire.

“LAUSD builds one high school at $800 million,” Goldstein said. “We’re doing the whole district for less than that. The cost to a median assessed single-family homeowner will be just over $2 a day, which I think is manageable. It (school renovation) benefits not only students and staff but the community at large. You don’t find too many thriving communities without a decent school district.”