Bonds' Defeat Hurts Building of O.C. Schools

By DIANE SEO

Sept. 20, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Legislature’s recent rejection of a $3-billion school construction bond bill has jeopardized plans to build several Orange County schools, including a highly touted but controversial plan to open the state’s first regular public school in a shopping mall.

Santa Ana’s Space Saver Intermediate School, a three-floor project scheduled for construction at the back of Bristol Marketplace, was designed to help alleviate overcrowding in the district and serve as a model for other urban school systems needing to build facilities in limited space.

Construction of the Space Saver school, which would be built vertically rather than taking up large areas with single-floor buildings, would have begun next summer if the state bond measure were approved by legislators and subsequently by voters.

“The Space Saver is an extremely important pilot project for the state that would have shown that it’s possible to take an existing shopping center and build an educationally adequate facility on that site,” said Mike Vail, facilities director at the Santa Ana Unified School District. “Now, the plans will have to just sit on a shelf while we wait for the state to fund us.”

Several of the county’s other fast-growing school districts were counting on the bonds to fund new schools. They fear their overcrowding problems will worsen as a result of the failed bond bill, which would have placed the school construction bond measure on the March, 1996, ballot.

But Santa Ana stands to lose the most because it already had received approval for about $41 million in state construction and remodeling funds, including $23.5 million for the Space Saver School.

Along with the Space Saver School, the district is being forced to shelve its plans to build an elementary at the corner of Greenville Street and Alton Avenue, and expand Muir Fundamental School.

The Capistrano Unified School District, which is waiting for $18 million to build three new schools, is the only other Orange County district that already had been designated to receive state construction money. Although Capistrano school officials may be able to make up the difference in state funding by seeking additional funds from developers, the lack of state money may still delay their projects.

“Parents are really angry. They feel their schools were being used as a political bargaining chip at the end of the legislative session,” said Virginia Genovese, head of the PTA’s legislative committee at the Capistrano Unified School District. “If legislators really cared about schools, they would have voted just for school bonds.”

Last weekend in the Assembly, where the GOP has a majority, Republicans refused to give the school bond bill the required two-thirds vote, unless Democrats would agree to a $2-billion prison construction bond plan.

The school bond proposal would have provided $975 million to universities and about $2 billion for elementary and secondary schools.

After a Democratic Assemblyman killed the prison bond without a vote, many Republicans abstained from voting, which resulted in the school bill being defeated by one vote. All of Orange County’s Assembly representatives, except for Doris Allen (R-Cypress), either voted against the bill or abstained.

“It’s very frustrating because the way it looks is that politics got in the way of taking care of the state’s children,” said Kathi Jo Brunning, president of Santa Ana’s PTA Council. “It seems like it’s all politics, and it shouldn’t be.”

But Assemblywoman Marilyn C. Brewer (R-Irvine), who abstained from voting on the bill, said she believes schools must come up with more creative ways to fund construction projects, other than just seeking bond money.

“California as a state has maxed out its credit card limit as far as bond money is concerned,” Brewer said. “Alternatives are needed. I don’t know exactly what the answer is, but we need to bring together creative minds to find other ways to build schools.”

Although the Santa Ana and the Capistrano unified school districts were the only ones in Orange County slated to receive state construction funds, several other rapidly growing school districts now are waiting for state approval for various remodeling and construction projects.

The Irvine, Saddleback Valley, Anaheim City, Anaheim Union High, Fullerton, La Habra City, Huntington Beach City and Huntington Beach Union High, Magnolia, Westminster, Santa Ana and Capistrano unified school districts, along with the county’s Department of Education, collectively have applied and are awaiting approval for a total of $502 million in state funds.

The bulk of this money would go to building schools to accommodate the increasing number of students entering Orange County schools. From 1985 to 1994, Orange County’s public school enrollment increased from about 330,000 to 404,000 students, a 22% jump.

Much of this growth has occurred in urban areas and in south Orange County, where many housing developments have been built and others are planned.

In the Capistrano Unified School District, enrollment has grown from 28,469 students in 1991 to 34,996 students this fall.

Between 1990 and 1994, the Santa Ana school district’s enrollment increased from about 46,000 students to 49,000. By 1999, another 5,500 students are expected to enroll in the district, according to district figures.

“Other than state bond money, there really are no alternatives for us to build other schools, except to consider holding a local bond measure,” said Vail, adding that the district recently set up a committee to explore that possibility. “The problem with waiting for state funds is that we can’t control when we get the money. No new state funds have been generated for a long time.”

In June, 1994, California voters rejected a bond measure that would have devoted $1 billion to new school construction and renovation projects. State legislators could vote on another school bond bill next year, but school officials are worried that politics will continue to block the bill’s passage.

Meanwhile, the fate of the Space Saver Intermediate and other schools hang in the balance.

Space Saver, which would accommodate 1,300 students, was approved by the school board in February, 1994, after intense community debate over whether it would clog traffic and entice vandals. But school officials said the plan has won support from many people who had questioned it, and longtime advocates were dismayed at the loss of the bond measure.

“Many people are going to be very, very disappointed when they find out what happened because they don’t realize it was tied up to bond money,” said Brunning of the PTA, who lives near the planned Space Saver campus. “A lot of people are expecting it to open soon.”

Audrey Yamagata-Noji, Santa Ana school board president, said the Legislature’s failure to pass a school construction bond bill was “a major blow to us.”

But she said the district has not abandoned its plans.

“Space Saver stirred up a lot of emotions. . . . But once the design of the school came forward, the excitement grew,” she said. “We are committed to building a school at this site, but now we have to look at other possible funding options.”

“It’s a project everyone can truly be proud of,” she said. “That’s why we’re so anxious to move forward on it.”

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Projects in Jeopardy

The Legislature’s failure to pass a $3-billion school construction bond bill has left planned projects on hold in two of Orange County’s most crowded school districts:

Santa Ana Unified School District

* Construction of Space Saver Intermediate School; would accommodate 1,300 students

Cost: $23.5 million

* Construction of Thorpe Elementary School; would accommodate 900 students

Cost: $9.16 million

* Major expansion of Muir Fundamental School; would accommodate 300 additional students

Cost: $4.7 million

* Renovations at Martin, Monte Vista and Santiago elementary schools

Cost: $3.9 million

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Capistrano Unified School District

* Construction of a school for K-8 at Oso and Antonio parkways; would accommodate 1,200 students