Stanislaus County schools needs multipurpose meeting space

Regarding your Jan. 2 editorial "County schools should pursue Plaza options": I can appreciate your thoughts that the Stanislaus County Office of Education might be able to bargain with Modesto Centre Plaza to reduce expenses.

While your proposal would still require SCOE to spend public funds to rent meeting spaces, it wouldn't create a dedicated multipurpose meeting space for a county whose professional development services are in increasing demand.

I'd like to address one unmentioned expense, though: food and beverage. At a recent symposium we held at the Hilton Costa Mesa, where, like Modesto Centre Plaza one must use the hotel's catering services, one gallon of coffee cost $100 and the cheapest lunch we could offer our 350 attendees was $50 per person.

SCOE's professional development trainings at the plaza would be bound to the same kind of expenses, as they are not allowed to use outside caterers to provide coffee and lunch at rates far cheaper than the DoubleTree would charge. SCOE's proposal to create a multipurpose meeting space is a much-needed project that would be an efficient use of taxpayer funds.

BRIAN BRIDGES

Modesto