ELECTIONS / OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT : Advocates of a 7th Campus Press for Bond

Nearly one-third of the county’s registered voters will be asked on April 14 to approve a $45-million bond issue to add a seventh high school to the Oxnard Union High School District.

Because it is the only issue on the ballot, the special election will cost the sprawling district $100,000. But supporters say they think the special election is the best--and maybe the only--shot they have to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to approve the bond issue.

Supporters note that both the June ballot--with a question asking for $1.9 billion in state school bonds--and the November ballot are crowded with other issues, including presidential elections.

With just the local bond issue on the ballot, they hope to draw supportive voters to the polls and pull off the difficult task of persuading taxpayers that the bond issue is necessary.

“It’s really difficult to get your message singled out from that great welter of messages,” said Jeannette Jennett, who has coordinated the $23,000, privately funded campaign by the Committee for Yes on Measure O. Jennett is a school employee on leave, whose six children have graduated from district schools.

The district has already moved to buy 50 acres for the school through eminent domain proceedings. It has deposited $9 million with Ventura County Superior Court and faces the task of absorbing $850,000 a year in debt service--with no additional revenues--if voters do not approve the bond issue, Supt. Ian Kirkpatrick said.

If the bond does not pass, said district Business Manager Bob Brown, staff will recommend selling the site. But because of the depressed real estate market, he said, the district may not be able to recover its $9 million.

The court has yet to attach a fair market value to the land on the south side of Gonzales Road between Oxnard Boulevard and Rose Avenue.

Although individual members of the Ventura County Taxpayer’s Assn. raised concerns about the cost of the election, the executive committee has voted to support Measure O.

“Based on the information provided to us . . . the population growth is there,” said H. Jere Robings, executive director of the taxpayer organization. “It’s simply a necessity to provide classrooms for the students. New facilities are occasionally required.”

The Ventura County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Camarillo and Oxnard chambers, and El Concilio del Condado de Ventura have also endorsed the measure, Jennett said.

Supporters hope that voters will find the increase in property taxes--an annual average of $7.75 for every $100,000 of assessed value over the 25-year life of the bond--an easy pill to swallow, Brown said.

However, a small group of critics does not see it that way. One member, Roy Lockwood, acknowledged that his group has been circulating “Vote No on ‘O’ ” pamphlets.

The leaflets don’t identify their source, which has angered school officials such as Brown. “That smacks of dirty politics,” Brown said, contending that the pamphlets are full of erroneous information.

Drafters of the leaflet seem to oppose the relocation of Oxnard High School out of the Oxnard Airport flight path. That is a separate project and will not be affected by this bond, Brown said.

Lockwood, an Oxnard resident, would not name those working with him or specify their number. He said he believes the district should modernize the aging Oxnard High School before spending tax dollars on a new school.

“It will go down the drain,” Lockwood said of the bond measure. “People have no confidence in the Oxnard (district) management.”

Kirkpatrick argued that without the bond issue the district will have to resort to alternatives that he believes would harm students’ education.

School officials would have to consider adding 100 portable classrooms to the district’s current complement of 53 to handle the increase in student enrollment projected by 1997, he said.

The Oxnard district’s six schools, which serve 11,743 students from Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme, El Rio and Somis, were built to accommodate only 10,600 students.

By the 1994-95 school year, when the new high school is scheduled for completion, officials say enrollment is projected to reach 13,930 students--enough to fill a new school.

Even now, lunchtime on the quad at Channel Islands High School, the most crowded school in the district, is “just a crush of folks,” Kirkpatrick said.

“When schools get so crowded . . . just the press of humanity is a problem,” he said.

If the bond doesn’t pass, Brown said double sessions could be possible, or multitrack, year-round school, a concept that only eight of about 800 high schools statewide have adopted. Brown said officials have considered year-round school in the past and rejected the idea.

Kirkpatrick said that without the new high school, students will have fewer opportunities to take science or computer lab courses. They also will face more competition to use restrooms, libraries and cafeterias, which were built to accommodate fewer students than are enrolled even now.

And with so many more students crammed into each high school, he said, students will have a harder time being chosen for athletic teams or elected student body president.

But school bond measures have a low success rate in California. Voters passed only 28% of the 19 bond measures and 18 special tax questions for schools statewide last November, said Howard Hamilton, associate superintendent for the Pleasant Valley School District.

In two separate elections last year, Pleasant Valley voters rejected $75-million and $55-million bond issues for renovating that district’s 13 schools and building a new elementary school. Pleasant Valley feeds high school students to Camarillo High School, which is in the Oxnard district.

Pleasant Valley officials decided not to try again this spring for several reasons. They said they wanted to avoid the hefty expense of a special election and thought it better to wait until the recession eases. They also shied away from asking voters to approve a bond measure when they are in the midst of making income tax and property tax payments.

Bruce Bradley, Ventura County assistant registrar of voters, says he sees little chance of Measure O passing with the two-thirds majority required.

“You can’t get two-thirds of this county to agree on anything,” Bradley said. “You couldn’t get two-thirds on motherhood and apple pie.”

Bradley also questioned the district’s rationale--placing the measure solo on the ballot as a way to increase its chances because few voters will turn out, and those who do will support it. “I think that’s a false premise,” Bradley said.

Oxnard Union High School District

District officials are asking voters to approve a $45-million bond measure to build a new high school in Oxnard. The cost would be borne by property taxpayers in the district over the next 25 years. Map shows the sprawling district that covers roughly one-third of the county’s voters, including residents of Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Camarillo, El Rio and Somis.