Local : Capistrano School Tax Defeated : From Times Staff and wire service reports

Lacking a two-thirds majority, a ballot measure to raise property taxes to pay for new schools in the Capistrano Unified School District went down to defeat even though it garnered 52.2% of the votes cast.

The final unofficial tally from Tuesday’s balloting on Measure A was 10,278 to 9,420, or 52.2% to 47.8%, according to the Orange County registrar of voters office. About 20.5% of the district’s 96,521 registered voters went to the polls.

The measure would have raised property taxes $100 a year on existing single-family homes and $60 a year on existing condominiums, apartments and mobile homes. Future single-family homes would have been taxed an extra $200 a year as part of the plan to raise $85 million over 25 years.

School Supt. Jerome Thornsley blamed the defeat on some voters’ belief that having inadequate schools would discourage new housing construction and that only new home buyers should pay for new school facilities. “It’s a narrow, selfish vision,” he said. “The educational level of our citizens affects all of us.”