LOCAL ELECTIONS: SCHOOL BOND MEASURE : Santa Monica-Malibu Looking at ‘F’ in Safety : Education: Prop. ES, a $75-million bond measure, is aimed at renovating the district’s old buildings.

Hunks of the stucco walls have fallen off, the paint is curling back, the heating system has a mind of its own, the pipes burst on occasion, and the carpeting--garish orange in some rooms, baby blue in others--is threadbare, stained and ripped.

This fixer-upper is Santa Monica High School. The cost of the repairs: about $20 million.

The high school and the other campuses in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District have been neglected so long that the district has put a $75-million bond measure, Proposition ES, on the Nov. 6 ballot to raise money for renovations. The general obligation bond, which requires approval by two-thirds of the voters, is enjoying widespread support and has no organized opposition.

But even so, proponents are only “conservatively optimistic,” Supt. Eugene Tucker said. Statewide, general obligation bonds in local school districts have about a 55% passage rate. Only about 10% of households in the Santa Monica-Malibu district have school-age children.

District residents, however, have supported the schools in the past. They voted in a $58-per-parcel tax for the district in 1984 and again in 1988.

The bonds would be sold over four years, beginning in September, 1991. They would be repaid through increases in the property tax rate over 28 years. The average homeowner in the district--whose home is assessed at $236,000--would pay about $27 more in property taxes the first year. The tax increase for the average homeowner would peak at $146 in the fourth year and begin to decline. The annual increase would average $68 a year.

The four candidates for the Santa Monica Rent Control Board who are backed by Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights have said they will favor passing through the tax increases to tenants. Renters would pay about $2 more a month.

Many of the Santa Monica-Malibu district’s 13 schools are more than 50 years old. Much of the work that is needed--more than 40%--is required for health and safety reasons, such as bringing the buildings up to earthquake- and fire-safety standards and removing exposed asbestos, according to a report by consultant Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler Inc. About 20% of the work is needed just to put the schools in good repair. Some of the funds would be used to make facilities accessible to the disabled and to modernize classrooms and libraries.

Each school would receive at least $2.5 million, with the largest chunk going to the 2,770-student high school, where, according to Principal Nardy Samuels, the heating blasts one day but conks out the next. Sometimes during the winter, temperatures in the classrooms dip to the 50s, and teachers have to wear gloves, he said.

In several hallways and rooms, the linoleum tiles are a crazy-quilt pattern of various ages and shades of gray and brown. Acoustical tiles have dropped from the ceiling, almost hitting students a couple of times, Samuels said. Steps and walkways, cracked and uneven, are accidents “waiting to happen,” he said.

In Room 109, where Stella Staley teaches typing, a ceiling tile droops, the roof leaks, water seeps in from the windows and the stucco is crumbling. One weekend last year, a pipe broke and flooded Mildred Farmer’s classroom.

The school, built in the 1930s, has hobbled along with “only the bare necessities” in repairs, Samuels said. “Every single (classroom) needs work,” he said.

“We’re talking about serious stuff. We’re not talking about little niceties,” school board member Della Barrett said.

The bond amount would be among the largest issued for a local school district in California, and amounts to about $8,065 per student. But, said Tucker, every penny is justified. The $75-million figure comes from an assessment of the district’s facilities, done by a team of architects and reviewed by a community task force, he added.

The state of decay has resulted from the financial crunch brought on by Proposition 13 and declining enrollment, Tucker said. School districts in California are funded primarily through the state, based on attendance. Enrollment in the Santa Monica-Malibu district has declined over the past several years, dropping to 9,300 students from about 9,500 two years ago.

The district has tried to keep budget cuts away from the classroom, Barrett said. “When your choices are to cut the educational program or to just defer replacing the plumbing for another year, you defer the plumbing,” she said. “But there comes a time when it must really be faced, and we’re at that point now.”

There are no other sources to pay for the needed work, district officials say. State funds are “too little and too late,” Tucker said. Private donations are invariably for books, copy machines, even scissors and jump ropes, rather than the duller items of plumbing and electrical wiring.

The regular school budget for this year is $49.8 million. Less than 4% of that, or about $1.93 million, has been allocated for maintenance and repairs, including the salaries of maintenance employees.

If the bond passes, construction would start in the 1992-93 school year and be finished within about six years, Tucker said. To stave off disrepair in the future, the district is considering selling some of its surplus property and using the interest on the money for maintenance of the refurbished buildings, Tucker said.

Bond supporters have formed into Citizens for Safe Schools and are backed by the Santa Monica City Council, the elected group that will constitute the Malibu City Council upon incorporation, the school board and the candidates running for it, the teachers union, the PTA, state Sens. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) and Hershel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica), Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, the Santa Monica police chief, the Rent Control Board, Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights and Concerned Homeowners of Santa Monica. About 100 volunteers, including high school students getting extra social studies credit, are walking precincts campaigning for the measure.

Citizens for Safe Schools has raised about $40,000, and is spending it “as we get it in,” political consultant Mark Siegel said.

There is no argument against Proposition ES in the voter pamphlet.