1,000 Residents Protest Proposed Fee for School Repairs

An angry crowd of more than 1,000 people turned out Thursday night to protest a plan by a joint authority of four school districts to charge property owners for the costs of school repairs and construction.

The crowd jeered and taunted speakers who supported the $50 annual fee, including a 77-year-old Huntington Beach woman who called them a frightening “mob.”

The protesters themselves were primarily placard-carrying senior citizens, who overflowed the auditorium at Huntington Beach High School for a public hearing of the West Orange County Schools Financing Authority. The authority is an umbrella group of trustees from Huntington Beach Union High, Huntington Beach City, Ocean View and Westminster school districts.

Sally Alexander, 77, who said she lives on a fixed income, told the panel that she nevertheless would be willing to pay the maintenance fee.

“Anyone who is against this is voting against our kids. I support this action. I am anguished for you and what you have to go through right now,” she said. She later called the crowd’s response a “mob action. It is scary.”

But Westminster resident Mary Goodland told the board she had received no notice of the proposed assessment fee. She scolded the board for trying to tax the residents.

“We have no control on the amount we could be taxed or how it could be spent,” she said.

Even before the meeting began, people outside were circulating petitions in preparation for a recall of the board members in case the fee passed.

The protesters were backed by an anti-fee campaign organized by the Huntington Beach/Fountain Valley Board of Realtors. That group held a press conference before the 7 p.m. hearing to announce that it would file suit today if the panel voted for the fee. Under the state Lighting and Landscape Act of 1972, public agencies can form maintenance assessment districts to finance the upkeep and improvement of publicly used recreational facilities, such as school fields and tennis courts. Critics say schools using the 1972 law, which does not mandate voter approval for the fees, are violating the intent of Proposition 13, which requires voter approval for tax hikes.

But property owner Ralph Bauer said earlier that he did not mind the extra fees even though he would have to pay assessments on 11 properties.

“You can’t get a Cadillac education for a Chevy price,” said Bauer, a retired chemist. “I’ll gladly pay for it. Free education is the greatest bargain in this country. How can people not want to put money in education. I can see people who are concerned about high taxes. But to deprive local schoolchildren of what they need is unconscionable.”

Teacher’s union representatives in the four districts said their memberships were divided on the issue.

For Dan Shepard and Gaye Davidson-Shepard, the issue affects them as teachers’ union presidents and property owners. They own two homes in Huntington Beach, so the fee would add $100 a year to their property tax bills.

“A hundred bucks a year is not going to impact me significantly,” Shepard said earlier Thursday. “I look at this as a user fee. People use the school facilities, and they don’t pay for it.”