Pleasanton schools look toward Measure I for needed campus upgrades
As November 8 Election Day approaches, KPIX 5 offers a series of reports highlighting the candidates as well as measures and issues affecting voters.
PLEASANTON -- Early voting is underway as Election Day quickly approaches and while all California counties are voting on big statewide issues, each community is voting on local issues that could have big impacts on residents.
In Pleasanton, a volunteer basketball coach at Amador Valley High School is fighting for funding to improve the school's 100-year-old facilities.
When you walk into the school's gym in Pleasanton you can feel the chill of a building that's seen decades upon decades go by.
"I'm kind of shivering. My hands are very cold like it's, this is what you get," Bill Butler told KPIX 5. "You can imagine what it's like in December and January."
Each practice he coaches, he tries to inspire the young students, but after he found himself and the students both shivering and sweating during practice in the gym last winter, he knew he had a different lesson to teach.
"I think this is the community's first responsibility to ensure that, you know, schools are funded and we have facilities that are functional and safe and that our community and our kids can be proud of," said Butler.
He comes from a long family of educators. "My mom said to me a long time ago 'you'll never once regret helping a kid.'"
Butler has lived a life of service, through the Navy, as a coach and today championing Measure I, a bond that would secure nearly $400 million to fund updates to Pleasanton school facilities.
"They're not only just used for physical education to write their testing sites, they're assembly areas as well," said Butler. "These assembly areas don't have heat, they don't have AC don't have a functioning HVAC system and so when kids are taking tests and a heavy coat during the wintertime, like what again, what are we saying to our kids?"
Inside the gym, it's clear that it needs some 'TLC'.
"This goal is literally the wall with some wiring around it," Butler highlighted. He pulled up one of the earliest known photos inside the gym, and not much has changed. "There's windows, there's that goal. The picture was probably being taken from over there."
Where the opposition lies is in a tax increase. If passed, Pleasanton residents would see a $49 annual tax per $100,000 of assessed value. But Butler says it's a small price to pay for the investment in the next generation of Pleasanton.
"Every vote matters," said Butler. "The evening of November 8, I just want to look back and say 'we really did give it our all towards this and hopefully it's enough."
"I think vibrant communities, communities of character, have a responsibility to our kids and our schools first," he added. "That's what makes communities valuable. And if we're not investing in our future, then what are we doing?"
