Fireworks Lacking in School Board Races : S.D. District’s Property Tax Proposition Is Even More Low-Key

Judging by the somnolent nature of the school-board races and school proposals on Tuesday’s ballot, the voter might wonder whether the continuing national debate about the country’s educational future applies at the local level.

There have been no fireworks in any of the races for the San Diego city school board, the San Diego community college board or the San Diego County Board of Education. Most of the statements have been heavy on platitudes and short on specifics.

A ballot measure to increase the proportion of property taxes that goes for construction of city schools has generated no noticeable opposition.

Major Decisions Approaching

Nevertheless, members of the boards will face major decisions in the next several years over questions of increased enrollments, replacement of faculty members and the extent to which classroom requirements should be strengthened.

Proposition Y, before voters in the San Diego Unified School District, would provide about half the $350 million that school administrators estimate will be needed through the year 2000 to cover capital requirements to handle increased enrollments.

The proposal, which requires a simple majority to pass, would raise the schools’ share of property taxes to a maximum of 9.575 cents per $100 assessed valuation, from the current 2.25 cents. If the measure is approved, the schools’ portion of the county’s property tax on a $100,000 home could increase to as much as $95.75 from the current $22.50, depending on the final dollar amount of bonds to be sold to build the planned facilities.

In 1974, voters approved the 2.25-cent levy to allow the district to sell revenue bonds for the construction of 21 schools. At that time, voter approval permitted the district to collect up to 38.3 cents per $100 assessed valuation through the year 2003.

But after the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, which limited property taxes, the maximum levy dropped to the 9.575 level. The district subsequently decided it needed only 2.25 cents of that amount to pay off the bonds for the 21 schools.

Normally, in accordance with Proposition 13, the district would have to seek two-thirds voter approval for more property taxes. But a bill passed this year by the Legislature specifically for the district allows a simple majority vote by framing the ballot measure as a reinstatement of taxing authority granted in 1974, and not as a new tax.

Projects Listed Individually

The measure would allow additions to 10 middle and night schools and reconstruction of seven elementary schools and one junior high school. It would also allow construction of four elementary schools, one junior high, one senior high, a special performing arts school and a maintenance yard.

All of the proposed projects are listed individually on the ballot and are spread throughout the district so that voters in each area will identify success of the proposition with tangible neighborhood needs.

School administrators, along with civic officials, have urged support of Proposition Y as the only major way to reduce the growing problem of school crowding. But they remain apprehensive about passage, given the skepticism many residents still show toward the performance of public schools and the predisposition of some voters to turn down any measure asking for new taxes.

Even with the proposition, members of the San Diego city school board will face major decisions about how to stretch district dollars to cover the increasing number of special curriculum offerings needed for its diverse enrollment, the nation’s eighth-largest.

Three of the board’s five seats are being contested.

In District A, which covers the northwest tier of the city, incumbent John Witt faces four challengers. Three candidates in District E are seeking to replace board member Dorothy Smith, who is retiring after two terms as representative of Southeast San Diego. Board member Susan Davis will face a write-in challenge in her campaign for reelection for District D, which covers much of the mid-city area.

The top two finishers in each district will run citywide in the November general election.

District A Candidates

The challengers in District A are Alice Buck, Ann Armstrong, Ed Smith and Phyllis Morris.

Buck, a family law attorney and former Lincoln High School teacher, believes the board has allowed teacher morale to reach what she claims is an all-time low. Buck says the board cannot bring about sustained educational reform without respecting teachers. She has been endorsed by the San Diego Teachers Assn., which is the bargaining unit for a majority of the district’s 6,000 teachers.

Armstrong works as a special education instructional assistant at Mission Bay High School and serves as president of the San Diego Unified PTA Council, the umbrella organization for schools in the district. She has criticized Witt for what she calls a lack of leadership, and believes he benefits unfairly at the polls from voter confusion with City Atty. John Witt, who is no relation. Armstrong would like to see better teacher-board relations and earlier preparation for students taking core courses in math, English and science at the high school level.

Ed Smith operated restaurants in the San Diego area for many years, sponsoring youth activities as part of his business. Now semi-retired, Smith, who also taught elementary school in the San Joaquin Valley before coming to San Diego, advocates more efficient use of limited funds in dealing with classroom and social-related problems. He also believes the present board too often makes up its mind before listening to the public.

Morris started her grass-roots campaign believing her experience as an accountant would be useful on a board that deals with hundreds of millions of dollars in budgeting for operations each year. But she says she has discovered in talking to teachers that there is a lack of communication between the board and the public and says she would work to improve matters.

Witt, running for his fourth term, calls his long experience vital to ensure continuity on a board whose other members’ combined seniority will be less than his alone after Dorothy Smith retires in November. Witt, a community college mathematics instructor, takes particular interest in the math-science curriculum and says he understands what teachers need. He dismisses the name-confusion issue as a canard.

District E Candidates

In District E, the three challengers for the open seat are Shirley Weber, Phil Hueso and Gloria Jefferson.

Weber is a communications professor at San Diego State University and has been endorsed by many prominent black residents in the largely minority district, including Dorothy Smith. Weber calls for quality education and for more teacher and parent participation in decisions.

Jefferson is a special education parent facilitator in the district. She advocates more parent education, more year-round schools, more vocational education and more stable funding for schools. She has participated on several task forces for the district concerning transportation, special education and textbook adoptions.

Hueso is a graduate of the former Wright Brothers Continuation School in San Diego and received his college degree at UCLA. Hues is co-owner of a taxi company. He promises to secure a stable funding source to end crowding and to increase teacher salaries. He also supports health clinics on campuses and increased counseling by schools on sexual and drug activity to cut down on dropouts and illiteracy.

In District D, Susan Davis is running for a second term as the only name on the June ballot. But a Normal Heights resident, Bob Davis, has qualified as an official write-in candidate and will run an active campaign in the fall. His name will appear on the citywide November ballot.

Community College District

The two races for the San Diego Community College District board have been much quieter than expected, despite a lawsuit filed recently by some professors alleging wrongdoing by the foundation set up several years ago by the board. Several candidate forums have drawn few participants, and, at one forum, no one at all showed up to listen to the debate.

In District B, Fred Colby, the son of wealthy art patron Danah Fayman, is running against longtime board member Gene French, who is pastor of Community Bible Church in Scripps Ranch. Both candidates will run citywide in the fall.

Colby wants to terminate the present foundation arrangement, as well as bring new blood to a board that he believes has been set in place far too long. Colby works for the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts.

French calls the board-foundation issue politically motivated and says his experience is needed at a time when the board is about to choose a new chancellor to replace Garland Peed, who is retiring. He also cites a new contract with teachers, which he believes has raised morale considerably.

In District D, longtime Democratic activist Evonne Schulze is the only name on the ballot to replace Richard Johnston, who is retiring. But San Diego attorney William Sauls and Julian Wulbern, an SDSU professor of German, have qualified as official write-in candidates. The one receiving the most write-in votes will appear on the ballot with Schulze in the citywide runoff in November.

Sauls hopes to mount a major campaign against Schulze, who is disliked by many Republicans for her partisanship over the years. But Wulbern put his name into the hopper at the urging of community college friends as a foil against Sauls. Wulbern supports Schulze and says he would not campaign actively against her in the fall.

Board of Education

Even the members of the county Board of Education concede that it is probably the least known of any political group in the county. It has little or no policy-making function, but acts as a pass-through agency for state educational funds and provides accounting and other services for school districts unable to afford the cost of doing them on their own.

The board can propose programs for districts to consider, however, such as business partnerships, and its superintendent can use his post as a bully pulpit for spurring reforms.

Incumbent Ann Navarra is unopposed in her city of San Diego district. In the South Bay district, incumbent Joe Rindone is opposed by Jim Walker. Rindone, who was superintendent of the Sweetwater district for 20 years, says his experience is valuable on the part-time board. But Walker, a representative for teachers unions, says a fresh approach is needed.

In North County, incumbent Joe Port is up against Cary Smith. Port is also stressing his experience, while Smith would like to see more interdistrict transfers of students allowed by the board.

In Carlsbad, voters will decide whether to authorize a fee of up to $5,400 on each new home built in order to pay for new schools. School officials have said that passage of Proposition Z is necessary to avoid double sessions and year-round schedules in the rapidly growing area.

Housing projects for senior citizens would be exempt from the fee. A two-thirds vote is required for passage.