School Bond Loses; Educator Wins College Seat

In Tuesday’s elections, Fillmore voters defeated an $8-million bond measure for a new school, and Ventura Elementary School Principal Gregory Kampf emerged victorious in a heated race for a seat on the Ventura County Community College Board of Trustees.

With only 8.2% of the electorate voting, Kampf, who served as a college district board member from 1981 to 1983, defeated Dorothy Ballesteros 4,119 to 1,223, or 76.6% to 22.8%. The remaining votes were spread among several write-in candidates.

“What the public has foremost on their mind is leadership on the board,” said Kampf, 37. “And people felt comfortable with my level of experience and felt I’d be able to jump right in.”

Ballesteros, a 43-year-old drug-abuse educator whose campaign emphasized her Latino heritage and attendance as a single mother at Ventura College, could not be reached for comment.

To Seek Full Term

It was not clear whether she would run again for the seat, which expires in November, but Kampf said he plans to be a candidate for the four-year term.

The election was called after four trustees deadlocked over a replacement for a fifth member who resigned in October. Kampf will represent parts of Ventura, Oxnard and unincorporated areas between the two cities.

In Fillmore, the bond measure, which required at least two-thirds approval, was rejected on a vote of 1,016 to 990, or 50.6% to 49.4%. Nearly a third of Fillmore’s electorate cast ballots.

District officials had said the measure was needed to help complete a new junior high school begun with bonds raised during a $5-million issue passed by voters in 1987, but voters were not swayed.

‘Ripped Off’

“I think people felt like they were being ripped off,” said former Mayor Gary Creagle, who led the opposition. “They felt like the district didn’t do things in a timely and businesslike manner. Why should we give them another $8 million?”

School officials have said a new junior high school cannot be constructed without the additional money. Plans call only for a new library, gymnasium and outdoor lunchroom on a site that is a five-minute walk from the present junior high school.

District Supt. Marlene Davis on Wednesday expressed disappointment in the election’s outcome but ruled out the possibility of putting another bond issue before voters in the near future.

“We have lost an opportunity to be forward-looking and pro-active about our future,” she said. “Houses are going up all the time and children in those houses will have to go to school and we won’t have the schools. We’ll always be catching up.”