A Vote for Schools and Self-Interest

Henry “Bud” Hunt, dentist, has been fighting decay in his hometown all his adult life.

He’s a native son of Burbank, the kind of guy who married his sweetheart at Burbank High School and raised six children. The kids were all enrolled in city schools during the eight years their dad served on the Burbank Board of Education.

Although his children are grown and have graduated now, Bud Hunt greets his patients, including me, sporting a button that bears the image of a little red schoolhouse and the message “Yes on B-97.” He’s co-chairman of the campaign to pass a $112.5-million bond measure April 8 that officials say is needed for a physical overhaul of Burbank’s aging 19-school system, including some buildings that are 70 years old.

His patients may be smarter than to argue politics from a dental chair, but it’s safe to assume that some are quietly planning to vote no. When Burbank pondered a similar bond measure three years ago, only 53% voted yes--a majority, but far short of the two-thirds required for passage.

So Hunt and other Burbank school boosters are now busy searching for the extra 14% that will give them victory. Sentimental appeals such as “Do it for our children” only go so far. The most persuasive argument, Hunt says, is “Do it for your property values.”

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That isn’t cynicism so much as realism. As in Burbank, monetary self-interest promises to be a prominent theme in the campaigns for upcoming school bond measures in Los Angeles Unified, Glendale Unified and other school districts as well. According to Eric Nasarenko of Angelenos for Better Classrooms, the group pushing LAUSD’s $2.4-billion bond campaign, this is the lesson learned from surveys and focus groups: “Don’t be idealistic and say we’re all in this together.”

Time was when Southern Californians were more apt to think that way. Parents of baby boomers understood the need to cope with the region’s rapid growth; school bonds often received more than 70% approval. Then the aging of boomers created a surplus of classroom space. Now school age population is back up, but voters today are more likely to think of the current generation not as “our children,” but “their children.”

Their children, especially, are the children of immigrants, many of whom came to the United States illegally. A Playa del Rey woman recently summed up this attitude in a letter to The Times: “I see no reason voters should assume another tax burden to educate students residing illegally. . . . While I will be sorry to deny citizen children and legal residents in need, I shall vote no.”

At the risk of seeming idealistic, Mary Boger, president of the Glendale PTA Council, would point out that the public schools are where “these children are taught to be the good American citizens we all want them to be.”

Antipathy toward immigrants isn’t the only obstacle facing school boosters throughout the region. Private schools have become more popular, and parents who pay hefty tuitions are more likely to balk at more taxes to help somebody else’s children. And senior citizens on fixed incomes have always been a tough sell.

Old-timers in Burbank--and not-so-old-timers too--sometimes look at Burbank High and think, it was good enough for me, it ought to be good enough for these kids today. Some people think the school bond is too ambitious. Sure, we should replace the leaky roofs and replace the old plumbing. But why do these kids today need air conditioning?

We need air conditioning, Hunt may explain, not just for the students, but for the computers the students need to compete in today’s academics. And the schools need new electrical systems to support the computers.

The rationale for preparing children to compete in a rapidly changing age of high technology may be evident to some, but Hunt says he always falls back on self-interest. Look, he tells old-timers, someday your house will be too big, the yard too hard to maintain. Someday the time will come to sell and move into someplace smaller. You better hope there are young families who want to move into Burbank. Down the road this bond could save you thousands of dollars.

Burbank’s bond pencils out at about $44 in annual taxes for every $100,000 in assessed residential valuation. That’s about 85 cents a week.

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Advocates of the current crop of school bonds seem cautiously optimistic. Voters in Los Angeles Unified provided hope last November when 65.5% punched yes on their ballots, falling just short of the two-thirds threshold. This was startling, especially because advocates did not mount a strong campaign and the issue was overshadowed by the presidential election and the initiative battle over affirmative action.

This time, school bond advocates are promising to be more aggressive--in L.A., in Burbank, in Glendale. Perhaps nothing unites quite as well as self-interest.