More Cuts Predicted in Wake of Bond Loss : Camarillo: Sixty percent of voters approved the measure to finance new schools and refurbish aging ones. But 67% was needed.

The failure of a $75-million bond measure may force Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Elementary School District to start double sessions, hold year-round school or teach classes in gymnasiums to make room for growing numbers of students, a school board member said Wednesday.

“Whatever it’s going to take to accommodate the children, we’ll have to do. We have no choice,” board President Leonard Diamond said. “I think the public is spoiled, and they simply don’t understand they have to look toward the future for their children. They simply didn’t do it.”

Measure G would have provided money to refurbish the district’s aging schools and build four new schools over a 20-year period. Although most of the voters backed the measure in Tuesday’s election, it required a two-thirds vote or 67% to win. Sixty percent of the voters--4,969--approved it, and 40%--3,318--opposed it.

The turnout was 25.6% of the district’s 32,423 voters.

Measure G received strong support in eastern Camarillo, and particularly in the fast-growing Santa Rosa Valley, which has some of the district’s most crowded schools.

Support also ran about 63% in the Leisure Village retirement community, where turnout was 36.9% and where bond supporters campaigned heavily.

But the measure was killed by significant opposition in several older parts of town, especially in the neighborhoods northeast of City Hall and south of Las Posas Road, where it was approved by only about 53% of voters.

It also received only about 53% of ballots at the Camarillo Springs Mobile Home Village and the Los Primeros Structured School neighborhood south of the Ventura Freeway.

The Los Primeros school is one of the district’s oldest and in greatest need of renovation. Paint is peeling, ceiling tiles fall out regularly, and the kitchen is unusable because of asbestos insulation on pipes. Children eat lunch outside on a blacktopped area.

“I don’t think people were really aware of how important the bond issue was,” Los Primeros teacher Raeanne Michael said.

Parent Debbie Andresen, a supporter of the measure, said some Camarillo residents were not aware of Tuesday’s election, and that voters against the measure opposed an increase in taxes. The measure would have assessed homeowners $35 a year for every $100,000 of assessed value on their homes.

“The bottom line is that when it affects their pocketbooks, people are not eager to let go of a few extra bucks,” Andresen said.

The measure failed despite the efforts of district officials and many parents, who polled voters by telephone and campaigned door-to-door.

The 6,500-student district is expected to grow by 3,600 students, or more than 50%, in the next 18 years. Enrollment for next school year is estimated at 6,650, a year ahead of projections in a 20-year master plan, officials said.

“We tried to communicate the need to the community the best we could,” Assistant Supt. Howard Hamilton said. “Either the community didn’t get the word, or it’s a sign of the times, with the recessionary situation we’re in.”

Supt. Shirley F. Carpenter said district officials plan to meet with a consultant to analyze the results.

“We’re looking to see if we did something more in some areas, if there’s more interest in some areas,” Carpenter said. “We have November before us, and whether or not to go for the bond again is going to be a major decision.”

With the measure’s defeat, the district, which had already projected cuts of $1.8 million to balance its $25-million budget, might have to cut even deeper to come up with money next year to make some of the most necessary repairs, Diamond said.

“We have to do the refurbishing we were hoping the bond measure was going to do,” Diamond said. “We were really counting on winning, and I’m just not sure what our options are right now.”

While the measure received a majority of the vote in all 21 precincts large enough to be counted separately, only four precincts gave it the required two-thirds margin. Votes in 11 small precincts were mailed in and counted with absentee ballots.

Among the key backers were voters who live near overcrowded Las Colinas Elementary School in Mission Oaks, who approved it Tuesday by nearly a 3-1 ratio--265 votes to 91. Parents from the area campaigned heavily for the measure. About 200 students were bused from Las Colinas this year to reduce crowding.

Two of the other three precincts that approved the bonds by the required two-thirds margin were also in Mission Oaks. Voters from the Rancho Adolfo Mobile Home Estates area favored it by 180 to 83, or 68.3%. And voters in a precinct east of Santa Rosa Road backed Measure G by 306 to 134, or 69.5%.

Residents near Santa Rosa Elementary School in the eastern valley near Moorpark Road supported the bond by 157 to 53, a 74.8% approval.

Only an average of 17% of registered voters turned out, however, in the four highly supportive Santa Rosa Valley precincts.

“Where are the voters?” asked William Lamp, principal of Las Colinas Elementary School. “What surprises me is they understand the need. Maybe they thought somebody else was voting.”

This was the largest school bond measure in the history of Ventura County, county elections chief Ruth P. Schepler said.

The bond failure follows closely a pattern of voting that has emerged both in the county and statewide in recent years.

“These bonds almost always pass on a strict majority,” Schepler said. “But it’s few and far between that they reach the two-thirds requirement.” A Santa Paula High School District bond measure failed in November despite receiving about 60% of the vote. But the Simi Valley district did pass a $35-million measure on the second try in 1990, and Oxnard Elementary School District voters approved the sale of $40 million in bonds for new schools in 1988.