Newhall Trustees to Put $20-Million Bond on Ballot

Newhall School District trustees, concerned they cannot rely on the state to meet local financial needs, voted unanimously Tuesday night to place a $20-million school construction bond proposal on the June 4 ballot.

The proposal, which requires a two-thirds vote to pass, is one of four school tax measures Santa Clarita Valley voters are likely to face in the next 10 months.

The valley’s school districts are struggling to build and expand campuses to house hundreds of new students brought to the area by the past decade’s building boom.

The outlook for financial help from the state “is not encouraging,” Supt. J. Michael McGrath said at the Tuesday meeting.

Tonight, trustees in the Sulphur Springs School District are expected to add a $20.2-million bond measure to the June ballot.

A $30-million measure was narrowly defeated in Sulphur Springs in November.

The William S. Hart Union High School District, which serves the entire valley, is considering a $25-million bond package.

Hart trustees favored setting the election in November to avoid competing with neighboring Newhall and Sulphur Springs.

Today also marks the start of the voting period in an unusual election--to be conducted entirely by mail--on a $12-million bond measure that would apply only to the Summit, an upscale Valencia neighborhood in the Newhall School District.

Los Angeles County election officials will begin mailing the ballots to voters in the Summit today.

Voters must return the ballots to the county by 8 p.m. Feb. 12.

State education officials called the Summit bond measure a rarity because it was proposed by parents, not the Newhall district.

Summit parents, complaining that they did not have a school in their neighborhood, offered last fall to pay higher taxes to build a new school and petitioned Newhall trustees to call a special election.

The tax would be levied on about 1,700 Summit households, but the student body would include children from other parts of the district.

Annual assessments would vary from $230 to $925, depending on property size, district officials said.

The Summit tax is rare but not unprecedented, said Duwayne Brooks, assistant superintendent for school facility planning with the state Department of Education.

A well-to-do neighborhood in the Sacramento City Unified School District approved a $9.5-million bond three years ago by 71%.

Summit residents also will vote on the $20-million bond package approved by the trustees Tuesday night.

The 30-year bond would cost the owner of a $250,000 house $39 annually, McGrath said.

The tax measure in Sulphur Springs would extend the life of an existing bond by 25 years but not raise current property tax bills, Supt. Robert Nolet said.

The bond is similar to last November’s Measure CK, which received 64% of the vote, just short of the two-thirds needed for passage.