Rate Hike, Economy Cited in Recall, Bond Loss

The defeat of a school bond measure and the recall of three water district directors in Camarillo were attributed Wednesday to uncertainty over the economy and non-responsiveness from water board officials to complaints about a rate increase.

Measure H in Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Elementary School District, which involved a $55-million bond measure that required a two-thirds margin for approval, was defeated by a 2% margin.

And in three separate measures, Camrosa Water District board President Jack C. Rogers and members William Goth and Kenneth P. Gerry were recalled by margins ranging from 5% to 9%.

In the Pleasant Valley bond measure--the second to be defeated in the district in five months--supporters expected an uphill battle because of the recession, Supt. Shirley F. Carpenter said.

“We knew it was going to be a really rough road because of the economy, and fear that there may be an increase in taxes not too far down the road,” Carpenter said. “We got calls from people asking, ‘Why not wait?’ ”

With the measure’s failure, the 6,500-student school district must begin immediately to examine every available option for housing its growing number of students next school year, Carpenter said. Those options include portable buildings, double sessions, new school boundaries, busing and converting storage space and other available rooms into classrooms.

The school bond measure received 64.4% approval from voters, but 35.6% of the voters opposed it. In June, the district’s voters defeated a $75-million bond measure, and district officials had reduced the bond amount hoping it would pass on a second try.

But the amount of the second measure was not as great a factor in its defeat as poor timing, Carpenter speculated. “I think if we’d gone for $20 million we still would have run into opposition,” she said.

In the Camrosa recall, two additional seats were open in addition to the three up for grabs through the recall. Candidate Ronald J. Vogel, who won one of the open positions, said the previous board’s lack of response to complaints over increased water rates fueled the recall movement.

“By stonewalling, they made people mad,” Vogel said. “If they had agreed to work with us, the air would have come out of the whole thing.”

The Camrosa Water District serves 8,400 residences and 200 farms in Camarillo and the Santa Rosa Valley. The recall movement against the three incumbents followed a rate increase in May.

The rate increase came after a request by the Metropolitan Water District last spring to decrease residential water use by 30%. In response, the Camrosa board approved a 38% increase in base rates and created a four-tier rate structure to discourage waste.

Some residential customers, required to pay rates of up to $700 a month, charged that the new rates were punitive and would result in windfall profits for the district.

Both races drew relatively high voter turnouts, with the Camrosa recall attracting about 40% of eligible voters and the bond measure drawing about 35%. Countywide, the average voter turnout was about 13%.

In school board races, endorsements by teachers’ unions appeared to have played a major role, with teacher-endorsed candidates sweeping into office in Ventura, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and the Ventura County Community College District.

Overall, however, the school board races were a mixed bag, with incumbents making strong showings in some races and going down to defeat in others.

In the college district, incumbent Timothy Hirschberg--the only candidate endorsed by the teachers’ union--outpaced four challengers by a wide margin to win a second term on the board.

Hirschberg will be joined by Allan W. Jacobs, a former Simi Valley Unified School District administrator, who defeated three other candidates in the battle to replace Trustee James T. (Tom) Ely, convicted earlier this year of embezzling $15,000 from the district.

Despite the well-publicized Ely trial, only 11.4% of Simi Valley, Moorpark and Fillmore voters turned out for the election, one of the lowest turnouts in the county.

In Ventura, retired Buena High School teacher Diane Harriman far outpaced all candidates, with more than 2,300 votes over second-place finisher Jim Wells, who also won a seat on the board.

In the Moorpark Unified School District, incumbent member Cynthia Hubbard lost her bid for a second term, ranking last among a field of six candidates.

Earlier this year, Hubbard filed suit in a well-publicized dispute with a neighbor, Moorpark Fire Capt. Richard M. Dobbin, over the barking of Hubbard’s dog.

Teachers from the Moorpark Education Assn. cited that dispute and Hubbard’s voting record as the reasons that she did not get their endorsement.

Teachers, however, endorsed successful incumbents Tom Baldwin, bilingual teacher Gregory J. Barker and Clint Harper, a former Moorpark City Council member who lost his council seat in a mayoral bid last year.

In a close race in Fillmore, challenger Nancy Marshall, a homemaker, outpaced both incumbents, winning 630 votes to the 625 votes of second-place finisher F. W. (Dick) Richardson, who won a third term. Incumbent Thomas Spitler, who won 563 votes, was ousted.

In the Oak Park Unified School District, where two seats were available, incumbent James Kalember was reelected, and office manager and homemaker Jan Iceland won the seat being vacated by board member Pat Manning.

Turnout was a low 12.4% in the Rio Elementary School District, where incumbent Ernest J. Almanza, a board member since 1965, won reelection. Candidate Art Hernandez, a Realtor and business owner, also won a seat.

Turnout was also low in the Conejo Valley, where 11.2% of the voters reelected incumbents Dorothy Beaubien and Dolores Didio by comfortable margins.

Times staff writer Tina Daunt and correspondent Patrick McCartney contributed to this story.