Series to Discuss Rebuilding Schools : Burbank: The town hall meetings will be held to solicit ideas from the public. They follow a ballot measure’s defeat.

Trying to regroup after the defeat of last week’s $100-million ballot measure to rebuild the schools, the Burbank Board of Education announced a series of town hall meetings to solicit the public’s ideas on how to get the job done.

“I think of it as a real brainstorming session,” board President Elena Hubbell said at Thursday’s meeting.

The first town hall meeting will be held at 10 a.m. May 14 at John Burroughs High School. The board wants to include a variety of people in the meetings, including those who opposed the bond referendum.

More town hall meetings may follow. Board members hope the meetings will lead to focus groups and community involvement, so that a widely supported way of rebuilding the schools could be found.

The bond measure, part of a $138-million plan to rebuild the district’s aging schools, received 53% of the vote but needed two-thirds majority to pass.

However, board members said public support for rebuilding the schools--some of which date to the 1920s--is high, adding that they want to take advantage quickly before the support dissipates.

“I’ve gotten a lot of calls to my home in the past few days,” said board member Joseph Hooven. “There’s a real sense that something needs to be done.”

The board has a range of options, including placing another bond measure on the November ballot or starting a piecemeal reconstruction of public schools.

The $138-million plan included $15 million in state modernization funds and $23 million in Burbank redevelopment money. The school board and the City Council worked closely on the bond referendum in a relationship that school board members want to rekindle.

The $23 million in city aid was offered as part of a larger financing plan and was contingent on the bond passing. However, board member Robert Dunivant suggested Thursday night that the school district request $16.5 million from the city that might be used with state funds to modernize and upgrade the elementary and middle schools by 1996.

The majority of the $100 million raised by the bond issue would have gone to a complete reconstruction and redesign of Burbank High School, as well as for major renovations of John Burroughs High School.

Dunivant suggested that perhaps later there might be more support for combining the two high schools on one site, which the school district could more easily afford. But that idea has been vigorously resisted.

Board member Denise Lioy Wilcox said she hoped that with the town hall meetings, the focus groups and the committees, the school district will know what direction it is headed by the end of June.

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Ted McConkey, a vocal opponent of the bond measure, told the board that he hoped the town hall meetings would not lead to another bond election.

If the board wants to place another bond measure on the November ballot, it will have to act by the first week of July, district Supt. Arthur Pierce said.

“My belief is that a bond issue is the only way to do it,” Pierce said. “The question is how much and when.”