Santa Ana Schools Back to Square One : Education: District’s hopes for an economic windfall to ease overcrowding die when city scraps redevelopment plans. Now it’s back to waiting in line for scarce state funds.

Education officials, their hopes deflated by the city’s decision to abandon an ambitious redevelopment plan that would have generated badly needed school funds, said Friday they must now compete with school districts statewide for money to relieve overcrowding.

Rudy Castruita, superintendent of the Santa Ana Unified School District, said the overcrowded district is once again reliant on funds from California’s school facilities bond program.

“We’re of course disappointed, but we go on from here,” Castruita said. “The only other resource we have is to be at the mercy of the state for funding for our schools. We’re just going to play by the same rules we have before.”

The only other alternative, Castruita said, would be to try to raise funds through a local bond issue, subject to voter approval. It may not even be considered, he said, since approval would require an unlikely two-thirds vote.

“Until we can get our facility needs accomplished . . . we will continue to be overcrowded,” said Castruita. But “you play with the cards you’re dealt, and go from there.”

Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young and City Manager David N. Ream said Friday there will be no attempt to revise or resurrect the redevelopment plan that council shelved May 18, when a record number of citizens turned out to oppose the proposed designation of 45% of the city as a redevelopment zone.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” said Young. “It’s dead. There’s no backup. We just move on to the next issue.”

Young suggested that the school district consider a local bond measure if the state Legislature approves a bill, up for consideration in the 1993-94 session, that would allow for approval of bond issues by a simple majority, instead of a two-thirds vote.

“Now, you can’t get Christmas elected on a two-thirds vote,” Young said. “But with a simple majority, I think school officials will have to take a serious look at it.”

At the May 18 meeting, the City Council was stunned by an unexpected crowd of about 2,000 mostly Latino residents, many of whom voiced fears that their homes might be taken under eminent domain for redevelopment projects.

If the plan had been approved, redevelopment projects would have generated about $38 billion in property taxes for new school construction, parks and other public facilities over 35 years.

“Given the lack of support from the neighborhoods and the state’s budget deliberations, we’ve missed our window of opportunity,” said Ream, the city manager.

With state lawmakers eyeing redevelopment funds to solve the state’s financial crisis and with several anti-redevelopment bills pending, Ream said “it wouldn’t be appropriate to go ahead and build community support for the city’s plan, and then have the state pull the plug on us.”

Some residents were upset on Friday about the city’s decision to abandon the plan.

“I was convinced that this could possibly be a way of getting money into the school system and, of course, parks and recreation,” said Kathi Jo Brunning, a community activist with two school-age children. “If it’s dead, I’m really worried about the state of our school system (and) how it’s going to be in the next couple of years.”

Additional funds are critical for the Santa Ana district, where the number of students has risen for 10 consecutive years.

District officials said some elementary schools now serve more than 1,500 students, making each of those schools bigger than 50% of the state’s school districts. Also, many schools in the district, which serves 48,000 students, exceed designed student capacities, and almost every school relies to some extent on portable classrooms to make up for inadequate permanent space.

Century High School, which was built four years ago, illustrates the district’s problems. Designed for 1,900 students, the school now serves more than 3,000 students. Because of inadequate permanent space, the school relies on 33 portable classrooms to accommodate its burgeoning student population.