Ambitious L.A. County proposals take early leads

Most of the nearly two dozen local school bond measures on Los Angeles County ballots surged to strong leads in early returns, including two behemoths, Measure Q from the Los Angeles Unified School District and Measure J from the Los Angeles Community College District.

The bonds were overshadowed by the presidential race and hotly contested state ballot measures, but school officials expressed hope that enough voters would approve the funding for school construction and modernization, even in the current economic crisis.

For Los Angeles voter Maria Rodriguez, both the L.A. college bond and the L.A. Unified measure seemed likely to boost her family’s prospects. On Tuesday, Rodriguez, 18, pushed her year-old son, Jesus, in a stroller to Pacoima Middle School, her alma mater, to cast her ballot.

“The school was fine when I went there, but I know it’s gotten worse since,” Rodriguez said.

The young woman, who attends the Pacoima Skills Center, an L.A. Unified adult education center, might also see some benefit for her own classrooms. As for the college bonds, she added: “Hey, I want to go to college, too.”

Measure Q stood out both for its $7-billion size -- the largest local school bond measure ever -- and the method by which it arrived on the ballot.

The school district originally planned a bond measure about half as large, but polling authorized by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa suggested that voters would support a larger amount. The increased size also allowed district officials, with the support of the mayor, to offer more money to charter-school advocates, who had threatened to oppose the measure. In the end, the charter schools remained neutral on the bond measure and no other forces emerged who could have mounted an opposition campaign.

Proponents viewed Measure Q as the next step in an ambitious, $20.3-billion construction and modernization program that has so far delivered about 75,000 new classroom seats. Measure Q, they said, was needed to provide more dollars to fix up older schools.

Critics complained that the district has not contained costs effectively and still has substantial funding available from four previous bond measures passed since 1997.

The backers of all the school bonds in L.A. County were hoping to capitalize on an Obama-energized electorate that they deduced would be friendly to school bonds. Unlike other taxation measures, school bonds require only a 55% plurality rather than two-thirds.

The national economic crisis tested those expectations, as did the plethora of tax measures and other ballot propositions competing for attention on a long ballot.

To reassure voters, the bond measures promised that the money would be guarded by independent citizens’ oversight, with nary a dollar for administrators’ salaries.

Statewide, 96 local bond measures and 21 parcel tax proposals to fund schools were on Tuesday’s ballot. California Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell said these funds were especially needed as education budget cuts loom.

The $3.5-billion Measure J, from the Los Angeles Community College District, also broke new ground for size. And on a per-student basis, the measure was more than twice as expensive as the bonds for much larger L.A. Unified. The college district also has unspent money from recently passed bonds, but argued that much more funding was needed.

Similarly, Beverly Hills Unified School District officials asserted that they had plenty of remaining spending priorities, despite bond measures passed in 1993 and 2002. Proportionately, that district’s $334-million Measure E was the priciest, at nearly $63,000 per student.

Torrance Unified trustees gave local voters the option of two bond measures, Y and Z, with what the district considered the most crucial projects in the larger Measure Y. Officials warned that if voters rejected both, the district would have to sell one or more elementary schools to fund essential projects.

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howard.blume@latimes.com