San Diego County Elections : Schools to Act Fast on Prop. O Victory

Pleased and somewhat surprised San Diego Unified School District administrators said Wednesday that they will move as quickly as they can to carry out construction and remodeling plans embodied in Proposition O, approved by district voters on Tuesday.

But they cautioned that it won’t seem very quick to students at crowded schools.

It won’t be until fall of 1994 that students and their parents will begin to see the first fruits from the $215-million, 10-year property tax increase that won a 56% yes vote Tuesday, they said.

Some larger new school projects involving the purchase of more than 100 parcels of land won’t be under construction until the spring of 1996, administrators said.

“The time lines for (construction and renovation) of schools are lengthy ones,” according to Pat Zoeller, business services administrator for the nation’s eighth-largest urban school district.

In particular, Zoeller said, the Office of the State Architect usually takes up to a year to review and approve design and construction plans submitted by school districts before a project can begin.

“We can begin construction by the fall 1994 for the additions to existing sites,” a $28.4-million undertaking to eliminate dependence on cramped portable classrooms and to allow modern technology to be added to school utility systems.

Permanent additions will be made to Wagenheim and Challenger junior highs in Mira Mesa, to De Portola Middle School in Tierrasanta, to Morse High School and Bell Junior High in Paradise Hills and to San Diego High School downtown.

Existing facilities will be remodeled at Wilson Middle School and Hamilton Elementary in Mid-City, and at Balboa Elementary, all of which are 25 or more years old and straining from enrollments far greater than originally planned.

“I know that seems like a long time but it takes a while to do the planning and line up the architects, and then go through the state architect review,” Zoeller said.

Construction of the four new schools approved Tuesday for the Mid-City, Golden Hill and Barrio Logan areas, at a total cost of $100 million, won’t be under way until spring 1996, Zoeller said, although Supt. Tom Payzant would like to see the schedule moved up by several months if possible.

“We’re already done some preliminary identification of property, we need to purchase in anticipation of the successful vote,” Zoeller said. “But we have to do environmental impact reports, hire environmental and toxic consultants, and negotiate for more than 100 parcels.”

Remodeling of all remaining district junior high and middle schools to equip them with state-of-the-art educational technology will take place between 1996 and 2002.

Nevertheless, everyone involved with the Proposition O campaign was ecstatic Wednesday that they overcame the twin devils of a poor economy and years of public-school bashing to win their measure.

“I said a lot of prayers, I had a lot of faith, and we had a lot of hard, hard work to get our message across that we are in desperate need,” Margarita Carmona, principal at Balboa Elementary, one of the district’s most crowded campuses, said Wednesday.

Although she realizes that a new school to relieve Balboa’s plight is almost five years away, Carmona said that Proposition O’s success makes the situation easier to bear psychologically. She may have to send her fifth-graders next year to an overflow school in Clairemont, similar to what Balboa and Sherman Elementary in Golden Hill have had to do with their sixth-graders for the past three years.

“But at least now we know it will be temporary,” she said.

Payzant praised the vote Wednesday, calling it “a long-term decision that will impact thousands of San Diego children in a positive way for many, many years to come.”

Payzant said he was surprised at the margin of victory, adding that he thought the result might be closer to a 50-50 split.

“But the fact that it was specific in its listing of schools on the ballot, that people knew what they would get, that we had a track record for delivering on what we said based on the (1988) Proposition Y and that the dollars would stimulate the economy--all of that helped,” Payzant said.

Terry Churchill of Pacific Bell, who co-sponsored the campaign, praised the school district for designing a construction plan that would benefit most areas of the city.

“San Diegans will vote for things when they can see what it is exactly being proposed and where the money will go,” Churchill said.