At a Hacienda Heights school, urgent repairs were delayed over cost concerns. It ended in an uproar

The Hacienda La Puente Unified School District Board of Education on Thursday, Dec. 19, declared an emergency at Glen A. Wilson High School, paving the way for repairs to be made to the high school after recent vandalism shut down power school-wide, prompting an uproar over how the board was dealing with it.

The action came after the board reconsidered a vote earlier in the week, when two trustees, Adriana Quinones and Stephanie Serrano, abstained from a vote on the emergency declaration, which needed approval of four of the five trustees. With their abstentions, the Dec. 17 vote ended 3-0, fueling an uproar from Wilson High School parents, teachers, students and staff.

At the hours-long continuation of the meeting on Thursday, protesters packed the board chambers and interrupted proceedings before the board unanimously voted to reverse its earlier decision and declare the emergency.

Quinones said she initially abstained from the vote because she wanted to get more information on how much the repairs would cost and that she did not want the board to write a “blank check” to contractors.

“For me, it’s about being responsible for our money,” said Quinones, asking that the dollar-figure be included in the staff documents. “I want to be as transparent as possible … I just wanted more clarification. It’s not that we were never going to move it forward.”

The amount of money to be spent was unclear on its face. District staffers said the vote was urgent in order to declare the power shutdown an emergency. The repair was the top priority and still undergoing, and the damage was still being assessed, they said.

Manoj Roychowdhury, associate superintendent of business services, explained that the vote was only for declaring an emergency so that repairs can go forward and that the board would be apprised of each step in the repairs process. Soliciting a bid for the repairs, the district said, would take in excess of six weeks.

“The district is keeping a running tab, it is north of $40,000 right now but we can’t know the extent of repairs since some of the work is underground,” Roychowdhury said. “All the vote is doing is declaring this was an emergency and repair was needed urgently and that the district did not have the time to go through the public bidding process.”

But in the meantime, the delayed vote on the emergency declaration led to delays on campus, raising the ire of many.

“How much has Wilson suffered because of this?” asked a visibly angry board Vice President Gino Kwok. “They already lost two days of classes. Does anyone care what Wilson is going through?”

He lamented the loss of lights for Wilson football games and band practices, and he questioned why something so urgent could result in a delay over cost concerns.

“This is why the community feels the way it feels,” he said.

Damage to the field came about an at earlier act of vandalism that did not constitute an emergency and is separate from damage to the school building, according to superintendent Alfonso Jimenez.

According to the district, on Nov. 17 electrical wiring and infrastructure components at Wilson High School were stolen and vandalized. It resulted in the electrical system being disabled school-wide.

Because the expected cost of repairs would exceed the limit set in the public contract code, according to the resolution, it required the board find that the situation constituted an emergency.

“The absence of a working electrical system at Wilson High School renders the school facility useless and severely hinders the ability of the District to provide for the educational needs of the Wilson students; and any delay in repairing the broken system will also have a adverse impacts on students, consequently it is imperative that the District make any and all repairs necessary to bring the campus up to its full operational capabilities without any undue delay,” the proposed resolution read.

The trustees did not comment on the resolution during Tuesday’s meeting but several did offer their perspective at the continuation of the meeting.

In the November election, Quinones beat incumbent Christine Salazar by about eight percentage points. Serrano held off Joyce Garcia by 325 votes to retain the seat.

Serrano has been censured by her fellow trustees three times in the last year. In October 2023, in August and September. The most recent censure alleged that Serrano had repeatedly used the phrase “Kwok Mafia” to refer to supporters of Trustee Gino Kwok.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Serrano was nominated and voted by the trustees to be board president for a one-year term.

Quinones and Serrano could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Trustee Nancy Loera thanked the crowd for attending, “for seeing something the board did that was wrong and coming here and demanding what is fair to them.

“I’m glad the board rectified the mistake and I hope it never happens again because it is a disservice to the students,” she said.