Vista to Try to Sell School Bond Issue Again : Education: Voters have given majority approval but denied previous measures the necessary two-thirds. School leaders call their situation desperate.

The Vista Unified School District, where crowding is so bad that students regularly have to stand in long lines to use the lavatories, will try for the third time to convince the community of its plight.

Twice now, voters have rejected the plea of the state’s second-fastest-growing district to approve bonds for building new schools and repairing old facilities to handle nearly 1,850 new students a year.

Yet, just one month since the latest defeat at the polls, somber district trustees have declared their intent to try a third time by asking voters in the June 5, 1990 election to approve a $63-million bond issue.

School supporters say schools soon will launch year-round classes to temporarily ease the crowding and will eventually have unwanted double sessions.

There remains some disagreement among the trustees over how to sway voters who dumped a $63-million bond measure in November, 1988, and a $38.8-million issue last month. In both cases, the measures won solid majorities but didn’t reach the two-thirds required under Proposition 13.

“My feeling is, we can’t play cat-and-mouse games, we have to let the people know how desperate the situation is,” Trustee Marcia Viger said Thursday, acknowledging that the district made mistakes in its ill-fated November bond effort.

For the November effort, the district hired a political consultant who orchestrated a campaign that still failed, despite no organized opposition. The vote was 62% for the bonds and 38% against, but the district had the small satisfaction of gaining 3 percentage points over the November, 1988, loss.

“People in Vista, for the most part, still have the feeling this is a sleepy little farm town, but things have changed drastically and they haven’t figured it out,” Viger said. “People here don’t want to be sent (campaign) mail, they don’t want a slick campaign, they want a down-home atmosphere.”

That means next time, bond proponents must win the hearts and minds by making personal door-to-door contact with voters and assure--unlike last time--that huge volumes of parents visit the polls, said Viger, a three-term trustee and mother of six Vista pupils.

But there also is sentiment, born of harsh disappointment, to take more drastic steps to grip the voters’ attention in the 18-school, 17,000-student district that serves Vista, parts of Carlsbad, Oceanside, San Marcos and unincorporated county area.

Ron Koch, who in frustration resigned his chairmanship of the district’s citizen budget advisory committee, believes the district must dramatize its plight by cutting school bus transportation, reducing programs that don’t pay their own way, and enacting a hiring freeze.

“They’re going to have to take a high-profile, hard-nosed approach,” said Koch, who has two children in Vista schools and is director of a supermarket.

Koch faults trustees for not having mobilized parents before, saying “parents didn’t go out to vote, and they (trustees) didn’t convince them it’s a critical problem. People don’t vote for a tax increase unless it’s an emergency.”

According to district officials, it’s an emergency. A new report by Supt. Rene Townsend said “we are avoiding double sessions by the initiation of year-round education.” But year-round class will only buy time. And Townsend said that, unless a school funding source is found soon, double sessions are coming in 1993.

Although a $63-million bond issue would hasten initial construction and make the district eligible for matching state funds, her report noted the district will need more than $200 million for new facilities over the next 14 years.

Today, said Viger, elementary students “must wait in line to go to the bathroom. I mean we have to schedule bathroom, and one or two classrooms have to line up.” More importantly, kids are cramped in classrooms and school yards, and, Viger said “a lot of the privations are intangible. We know it’s not good to cram kids in small spaces.”

Vista’s elementary through high schools were built for 12,000 students and now house 18,000. Enrollment is rising about 1,850 students a year and is projected to reach 2,000 more annually over the next five years.

For the 1988 bond election, school officials had asked voters to approve $63 million, and, when that failed, trustees decided it might at least appear more prudent--if not salable--to trim the amount to $38.8 million next time.

With the lower sum on the ballot, “they thought it would be slam-dunk” for approval, said Manuel Robles, the district’s communications director. “It was a bad decision to drop that amount” from the original $63 million, he said.

Wednesday, trustees voted 5 to 0 to put a $63-million question on the June ballot, believing that will allow more time to muster voter support and save election costs by putting the bond measure on a consolidated ballot.

They also demonstrated that double sessions are clearly possible by naming a special committee to begin planning double sessions, which typically teach students in two shifts--7 a.m. to 1 p.m., and 1 to 7 p.m.

The committee will “start up the first of the year to see how soon they can bring double sessions on line,” Robles said.