Poway School Officials ‘Letting the Dust Settle’ After Bond Issue Loses

The cliffhanger election that left a $58.4-million Poway Unified School District bond issue only 131 votes shy of victory Tuesday has district officials shaken and unsure of what the future holds for the 20,000 students in the inland district.

“When we put this bond issue on the ballot, we thought that the local voters deserved a chance to decide this issue instead of the state, which has been messing it up for a very long while,” Supt. Robert Reeves said Wednesday.

Some Hope Remains

There is a glimmer of hope left to the bond proponents: an official canvass and counting of 82 ballots omitted from Tuesday’s tabulations. But Reeves said school officials aren’t counting on a miracle that would change the margin of approval from 65.9% to the 66.7% needed to pass the measure.

He said bond supporters had worked hard to win 12,000 “yes” votes, “and fell just a few votes short, about two votes per precinct.”

He blamed the measure’s failure on “people who just don’t like taxes and people who are opposed to the growth that is going on in some parts of our district,” especially in the communities of Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos, Sabre Springs and Carmel Mountain Ranch, all of which lie within the Poway school district but are part of San Diego.

The bond money would have gone to build a third district high school in Rancho Bernardo and three elementary schools in the fast-developing San Diego suburbs.

The district, which prides itself on being the best of its size in the county and on standing high in state academic ratings, now faces the possibility of double sessions, a year-round school schedule or busing to ease the crowding that forces 20% of the students into temporary classrooms and trailers.

Leslie Fausset, district director of communications, said the district has been swamped with calls from supporters since news of the defeat. “A lot of the callers wanted to put it to a vote again in June,” she said, “but we are not going to make any rash decisions at this time.”

The loss turned a victory party into a wake Tuesday night at the Rancho Bernardo Inn when unofficial results were announced to the more than 150 volunteers who worked for the Coalition to Save Quality Education, proponents of the bond.

Waiting to See What Happens

Reeves said district officials “will stand back, let the dust settle and see what happens” to two state educational bonds for $800 million each, scheduled for the June primary and November general election.

The superintendent said the Poway district has no way of knowing whether it will receive any of the $1.6 billion in state educational bond funds if they are passed because the state has no priority list of projects that would be financed by the money.

“The Legislature and the governor are able but unwilling to deal with this issue,” Reeves said, pointing out that $1.1 billion in state surplus was returned to taxpayers instead of being distributed to school districts affected by rising enrollments.

The timing of the election--only three days before the deadline to file state and federal income taxes--was not the district’s choosing, Reeves said. Only three dates, the June and November elections and the second Tuesday in April, were open for the bond vote, and Poway school officials chose April to avoid the crowded ballots of the primary and general elections, he said.

Reeves said he is not ruling out another try.