ORANGE : Maintenance Fee for Schools Considered

Trustees of the Orange Unified School District will consider a proposal tonight to charge property owners an annual fee that would pay for the upkeep and improvement of school recreational facilities.

Many parents and other residents have denounced such a fee as an unapproved tax and vowed to fight it. But district officials have said the proposal to form a maintenance assessment district--which would levy a $30 annual fee on property owners--is the only effective way to raise money to improve school fields, pools and other recreational facilities.

The plan would raise $1.59 million annually for the financially strapped district. The assessment would go into effect for the 1991-92 school year.

In the past week, dozens of letters protesting the proposal have landed at the district office, and some citizens have lobbied the City Council for help. Parents with children in district schools and residents whose children graduated long ago are calling the plan unfair taxation.

“I’m 69 years old and my husband is 70,” Orange resident Marnie Chubak said. “It’s been a while since we’ve been romping around on playgrounds. . . . (The assessment) is another gimmick to pick pockets, as far as I can figure out.”

Barry Resnick, the school board’s vice president, said he opposes the plan because the district did not give the public enough chance to react to the proposal.

“I’d love to generate money for the school district, and I’m not opposed to taking money out of my own pocket to pay for it,” Resnick said. “But I think what the public is saying is right. They were railroaded.”

Some district officials say that if it is to have cleaner, safer, more modern recreational facilities, the district must levy a fee. “These are projects that otherwise would not be done” because of budget restrictions, said Frank Remkiewicz, director of planning.

Board member Russ Barrios called for an exemption from the fee for senior citizens and others on fixed incomes but added: “The reality of the matter is that we are talking about $2.50 a month. That serves thousands of children and adults throughout the district, not just our schoolchildren. If our facilities are going to be used by the public, we should be compensated for it.”

The Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972 allows public agencies to form maintenance assessment districts without a vote by residents or property owners. But taxpayer advocates suggest that it may be illegal for school districts to levy this type of fee.

“We are having an attorney look at this right now,” said Joel Fox, president of the Los Angeles-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “I have a sense that the intent of the ’72 law never was meant to go to the schoolyard.”

At least six other school districts in Southern California are considering maintenance assessments as a way to raise money.

Tonight’s public hearing will be held in the district’s board room at 370 N. Glassell St.