The Davis school board voted unanimously Thursday night to demolish the aging, leaky multipurpose room at Davis High School.

The school board also scheduled a special meeting next Thursday to work on details of a possible new parcel tax to be placed  before Davis voters in the Nov. 6 election. The majority of the trustees are leaning toward a small parcel tax rather than the $642 annual tax per home advanced earlier this month by trustee Richard Harris.

The MPR was built in the 1960s and has experienced leaks in its zigzag-style roof for years. Repeated roof repairs have not stopped the leaks. The building was closed in October 2010 when toxic mold was discovered.

Mike Adell, the school district’s director of facilities, recapped the option of installing a new roof by applying for state hardship funds. Adell’s estimate indicated a new roof would cost about $1.2 million, with the Davis school district putting up about $500,000, and the state paying the remaining $757,000.

Adell said basic demolition of the MPR would cost $473,791. Converting the site into a turf/field area would cost an additional $52,928. Installing basketball courts would cost an additional $67,719, and creating a paved area with shade structures would cost as much as $119,850.

An upgrade to the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system and associated electrical work on the remaining portions of the building (a kitchen on the north, two large classrooms on the south) would cost $389,863.

Associate Superintendent Bruce Colby told the trustees it might take three to four years, perhaps longer, before state hardship funds actually would arrive.

“I don’t have much confidence in the state funding coming through,” a worried school board president Susan Lovenburg said.

Trustee Richard Harris repeated his assertion that putting a new roof on “a poorly designed, old building” was like “lipstick on a pig.”

Trustee Gina Daleiden compared a new roof on the old building to “throwing money at something that’s not going to be worth it,” and trustee Sheila Allen expressed concern that work crews would find asbestos, further driving up the cost of a new roof.

The school board then voted 4-0 (with trustee Tim Taylor absent) to authorize demolition of the MPR. Staff will now assess the strength of the interior wall between the MPR and the kitchen before demolition begins.

The board instructed staff to create an outdoor area that could be used for meetings or lunch — without a shade structure, using decomposed granite as a ground surface — with enough electrical upgrades to keep the remaining classrooms and kitchen area in use, but no new HVAC system.

The total project should run about $513,000.

On the subject of a possible parcel tax, Harris outlined his idea for a $642 annual parcel tax per home that would:

* Renew the existing two-year Measure A “emergency” parcel tax, approved by local voters in spring 2011 (about $204 per home per year);

* Provide funding to restore the $3.5 million in budget cuts made this spring to address the school district’s structural deficit (about $198 per home per year); and

* Give the school board the option to charge about $240 per home per year to replace a new round of state “trigger cuts” if California voters do not approve Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax increase measure in November. Those cuts would mean another $3.5 million state budget cut for Davis schools.

“Let’s go to the local voters and make a case for local control of local schools,” Harris argued, adding that “the fact that we have our entire Davis education system resting on what a voter in Bakersfield or Newport Beach does — that’s crazy.”

Harris said a new round of trigger cuts is likely, since many observers think Brown’s measure will fail. Harris suggested that giving the school district the option to counterbalance a new round of cuts with local funding is like “putting a trigger on a trigger.”

Allen, Daleiden and Lovenburg indicated they are leaning in favor of asking voters to renew the soon-to-expire Measure A parcel tax of $200, and added that they are open to discussing the idea of a bigger tax to offset the new trigger cuts.

But the trio made it clear they do not support asking for the full amount Harris is suggesting to offset this spring’s staffing and program reductions.

“I just don’t think the capacity exists to go all the way there,” Daleiden said. Instead, she favors an approach involving employee concessions, community funding and program cuts to mitigate some of the staffing cuts made this spring.

Activist Jose Granda, who opposed the Davis school district’s last two parcel tax measures, said he would oppose any new parcel tax, and predicted voters would reject it.

Lovenburg said a new parcel tax would be “a heavy lift” in terms of building the two-thirds majority required for passage.

The matter will come back to the school board for further discussion, and perhaps a resolution authorizing a ballot measure for the Nov. 6 election, at a special school board meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday.

— Reach Jeff Hudson at [email protected] or (530) 747-8055.

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