ELECTIONS SCHOOL BOND : Turnout Is Expected to Be Low for Local Issue

Low voter turnout is predicted for today’s special election in which nearly a third of the county’s voters will be asked to pass a $45-million bond measure to build a new high school in Oxnard.

Bruce Bradley, the county’s assistant registrar of voters, said he anticipates that 20% to 25% of the 98,000 registered voters in the sprawling Oxnard Union High School District will cast ballots.

The district is paying $100,000 to hold the one-issue special election, hoping that more supporters than opponents will take the time to vote.

But Bradley said he expects the measure to fail to obtain the two-thirds majority necessary to win approval.

“It’ll get enough votes to get 52% or 53%, but it’s not enough of a yes,” Bradley said. “You can’t say ‘yes.’ You have to say, ‘yes, yes, yes.’ ”

The new 2,250-student school would be built on Gonzales Road between Oxnard Boulevard and Rose Avenue and would be completed by the 1994-95 school year. Including the Frontier continuation school, the new high school would be the district’s seventh.

More than 11,740 students from Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and Somis now attend the district’s overcrowded schools, which were built to accommodate only 10,600 pupils. Officials say enrollment is projected to increase to 13,930 pupils by 1994.

Volunteers for the Committee for Yes on Measure O campaign spent the day and night on the telephone Monday, reminding voters who had said they would favor the measure to go to the polls. They intend to make calls today until 7 p.m. as well, said campaign coordinator Jeannette Jennett.

“With a special election, it’s easy to let it slip by,” Jennett said.

Unlike Bradley, Jennett said she is confident that the bond measure will pass.

“Even in hard times, people live up to their responsibilities,” she said. “And providing facilities for public education is a community responsibility.”

Not everyone sees it that way. Camarillo voters last year rejected $55-million and $75-million bond measures to build and improve schools in the Pleasant Valley School District.

However, Oxnard voters passed a $40-million bond for new elementary schools in 1988. Camarillo residents send their children to the Oxnard Union district and are eligible to vote in today’s election.

In a random sample of 400 registered voters surveyed in October, 68% of the voters said they would support a bond measure that would increase property taxes up to $12 a year for each $100,000 of assessed valuation, said district business manager Bob Brown.

Measure O asks for an annual average of $7.75 per $100,000 of assessed valuation in increased property taxes over the 25-year life of the bond.

“We feel pretty confident,” Brown said. “We’ve had so much support from so many sources.”

“I think we have enough yes voters. The question is whether they’ll all go to the polls,” Jennett said.

There is no organized opposition to the bond measure, although pamphlets asking voters to “Vote no on ‘O’ ” have appeared on some doorsteps. Oxnard resident Roy Lockwood said that he opposes the bond measure and that he distributed some of the leaflets, which do not identify their source. Lockwood said he would like to see the district modernize Oxnard High School before building a new facility.

If the bond measure does not pass, the district’s complement of 53 portable classrooms would have to be expanded to 100, officials say, although they do not know where they would put the new classrooms.

Brown said double sessions and year-round classes are other alternatives.

ELECTION AT A GLANCE

Nearly a third of the county’s voters will be asked today to approve a $45-million bond measure that would add a seventh high school to the Oxnard Union High School District.

A turnout of 20% to 25% of the 98,000 registered voters in the district is predicted. It takes a two-thirds majority for passage.

If Measure O passes, residents of Oxnard, Camarillo, Port Hueneme and Somis would pay an annual average of $7.75 per $100,000 of assessed valuation in increased property taxes over a 25-year period.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

To find the polling place nearest you, call 654-2781.