Sausalito Marin City School District trustees have signed off on an ambitious design plan to unearth an underground creek that runs through campus.
Trustees voted unanimously on Thursday in favor of the plan for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy. The design includes an 120-seat outdoor amphitheater overlooking the bay, a 40-seat classroom space, and walking paths and small bridges along up to 900 feet of Willow Creek.
“I like this alternative,” said Ian Sobieski, a member of the Sausalito City Council who spoke during public comment. “It will be a big step to becoming a world-class campus — a real jewel of southern Marin.”
Steve Moore, a leader of the nonprofit Friends of Willow Creek, said the larger design alternative chosen by trustees over a smaller version would help to attract additional grants to supplement the $3 million awarded the project by a Bay Area arm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“It is inspiring to the Friends of Willow Creek that the school board selected the bolder, more ambitious alternative to design,” Moore said Friday. “Since we won’t go out to bid for at least a year, going through design and permitting processes, we have time to gather additional funds to construct the entire length.”
Superintendent LaResha Huffman said security and liability issues regarding future student, staff or public use of the outdoor facilities may be addressed with appropriate signage and the use of electronic registration and ticketing to control attendance at events. Those issues were raised at a previous board meeting.
Huffman said she has consulted with the district’s insurance providers, and “they don’t think there will be a risk if we put up signs,” she said. “They believe the risk for students is minimal.”
Concerns about flooding are also not warranted, said Christopher Woltemade, of Sebastopol-based Prunuske Chatham, Inc., which is doing the design work.
“It’s not a major river with big floods,” Woltemade said. “It’s a small creek.”
Woltemade said Friday that his firm will take a year to design the full plan, including check-ins with the district to see if changes are needed.
After the design plan is completed, a decision could be made whether to bid out the whole project or just portions of it, depending on funding. Bidding would be open to contractors who specialize in environmental restoration work, Woltemade said.
“This kind of restoration work can be broken into phases as needed,” Woltemade said.
Conservation activists Vicki Nichols, Emily Schmidt and Catie Thom all urged the board to move forward and approve the design plan.
“Every single science standard can be taught at the creek,” said Schmidt, a parent and co-founder of Friends of Willow Creek.
Thom, Sausalito’s resiliency and sustainability manager, added: “Funding should not be a problem.”
MLK middle school science teacher Nathan Scripps said he was already taking his classes to the natural area on the perimeter of campus where the creek will be brought above surface.
“My students have taken soil and water samples there,” he said. “They will be looking at the samples under a microscope.”
Scripps added that the creek project will help connect students to the watershed and allow them to understand how they can celebrate the natural environment where they live and go to school.
“We already have a fourth-through-eighth-grade outdoor education curriculum,” Scripps said. “It’s a marquee program.”
The Willow Creek restoration plan was included in a public fact sheet leading to voter approval of the $41.6 million Measure P bond in 2020, Sobieski said. Most of the bond money is going to build a new elementary school in Sausalito, but the creek plan was still envisioned as part of the campus makeover, he said.
“I’m a resident and a voter, and I voted for Measure P, especially after the fact sheet said it would include taking the underground creek to daylight,” Sobieski said. “It was a beautiful detail.”