Capistrano Unified to Unveil Plan for May 9 Tax Election

South Orange County’s booming Capistrano Unified School District tonight will unveil a plan to build new schools and refurbish existing ones by making the entire populated area into a special-tax district.

The plan calls for a special election May 9 to decide whether property owners should be taxed. Approval would require a two-thirds yes vote.

The special tax on existing single-family homes would be $100 a year; $60 on existing condos, townhouses, apartments and mobile homes. For residences built after the election, the tax would be $200 on single-family homes and $120 on condos and similar units.

Existing commercial and industrial buildings would be assessed an additional 6 cents per square foot, with future buildings assessed at 12 cents.

“This is an uphill battle, but we’re quite confident that the public will support the effort when they become aware of the facts,” said Brian R. Demsey, president of the Capistrano Unified school board.

Demsey and other school officials will outline the special-tax proposals at a public meeting at 7:30 tonight at Marco Forster Junior High, 2560l Camino del Avion, in San Juan Capistrano. The school board voted unanimously Dec. 5 to call the special tax-proposal election May 9.

The plan, if passed by the voters, would allow up to $70 million in bonds to be issued for the building program. The bonds would be paid off from the special taxes during the next 25 years.

The sprawling school district, which extends from Laguna Niguel to San Clemente, is one of the most rapidly growing systems in the state. Even faster student growth is projected during the next 4 years.

Enrollment Jumped 32%

District figures show that enrollment jumped 32% in the past 6 years: from 17,377 students in 1982-83 to 23,048 in 1988-89. By 1992-93, the district expects enrollment to leap to 31,405 students--a 36% increase over this year’s enrollment.

Demsey and district Supt. Jerome Thornsley said in interviews Monday that state aid alone would not be sufficient to do all the building and repairing the district needs.

“If this (special tax) passes, every existing school in Capistrano Unified will have an opportunity for some improvement,” Demsey said. He said that many older schools need repairs and refurbishing and that even some of the newer schools need additions.

“The state financing for some of the newer schools only allowed buildings rather Spartan in nature, both in diversity of the facilities and in terms of numbers of square feet per child,” Demsey said.

Thornsley said the state is expected to give Capistrano Unified about $35 million in construction money during the next 5 years. That amount would complement the $70 million the district hopes to raise by passing a special-tax unit, Thornsley said. The total $105 million would then allow both new buildings and the repair of existing ones, the superintendent said.

Demsey said that Proposition 98, the initiative narrowly approved last November by the state’s voters, provides more money for education operating expenses but not for school construction. “Proposition 98 doesn’t flow down for new construction or improvement of existing construction,” Demsey said.

Capistrano Unified is seeking the new tax through a mechanism the Legislature enacted in 1983 to help financially strapped local governments. The law allows an area to levy a special property tax, over and above the limits set by 1978’s Proposition 13, if a special-tax unit is created by a two-thirds vote of the residents.

Mello-Roos districts are easier to create in vacant areas scheduled for development. In those areas, the state law allows the landowners, who generally vote for the districts, one vote per acre. Many new developments in Orange County became Mello-Roos taxing districts in that fashion. Capistrano Unified School District already has three existing Mello-Roos taxing units in housing developments now under construction, and two more such Mello-Roos units are scheduled in forthcoming new developments in the school district.

The new Mello-Roos district, which encompasses the rest of the Capistrano school area, is heavily populated, and creation of the district would require an affirmative vote by two-thirds of those voting May 9. All registered voters of the district would be eligible to vote.

Renters would not be assessed the new tax, and property owners 62 or older would be exempt, Thornsley explained.

Some smaller school districts in California have made themselves into one large Mello-Roos taxing unit, Thornsley said. But he noted that this will be the first time in Orange County that a school district has sought to have all of its territory covered by Mello-Roos taxing units.

In 1983, Irvine Unified School District attempted a $50-per-household special tax for education to supplement state aid. Despite an energetic campaign by many Irvine residents favoring the tax, the measure only got 52.5% of the vote--considerably less than the 66.7% (or two-thirds) needed for passage.

Demsey said he believes that Capistrano Unified can nonetheless pass its proposal by a two-thirds vote on May 9. But he said it will take considerable grass-roots work.

“In terms of success, we will have to sell this proposal to every corner of our school district,” he said. “We are hoping people will step forward and take an active role, working with small groups, doing public-relations work, getting to the grass roots, helping people understand what this (proposal) would do for our schools.”

Demsey said that so far no organized opposition to the taxing proposal has arisen in the district.

“Things look very positive,” Thornsley said. “So far we’re getting a lot of support from our PTAs, PTOs (Parent-Teacher Assns. and Parent-Teacher Organizations), teachers, classified staff and city councils.”