Hueneme, Fillmore OK Measures; Oxnard Votes No

Port Hueneme and Fillmore voters approved two separate school bond measures Tuesday to pay for new school construction and classroom renovation projects, but a third bond measure in Oxnard narrowly failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority needed for passage.

The final unofficial vote in Fillmore was 1,493 in favor of Measure I and 546 against, or 73.2% in favor and 26.8% voting no. Of Fillmore’s 7,031 registered voters, 2,039 cast votes--a relatively strong turnout of 29%.

In the Hueneme School District, although the voter turnout was only about 12% of the 20,000 registered voters, the margin of victory was even higher. There were 2,003 votes in favor of Measure K compared to 679 against, a margin of 74.7% to 25.3% opposing the measure.

In the Oxnard Elementary School District, the vote was 65.4% in favor of Measure J compared to 34.6% opposed. Although that showed strong support for the school bond measure there, it fell short of the two-thirds vote needed for passage.

About 14% of the registered voters turned out for the Oxnard election. The final unofficial vote was 4,059 in favor of Measure J and 2,151 against.

Although a low turnout was anticipated, even fewer voters went to the polls in Oxnard and the Hueneme district than expected for the special election.

“The theory is that people who have kids in schools and are interested in [passing a bond], that’s who’s going to go out and vote,” said Bruce Bradley, the county elections chief. “Unfortunately, that has not been enough to pass them traditionally.”

Fillmore was a noticeable exception, Bradley said.

“That says to me they must have had a lot of campaigning,” he said.

Bradley added, however, that the split results overall presented a mixed message from voters. Still, he said, the passage of the two school bond measures makes it likely that Pleasant Valley and Rio school districts and possibly others will place bond measures on the November ballot.

Ventura Unified and Ocean View Elementary school districts have already qualified measures for the June ballot.

In Oxnard, voters were asked to approve a $57-million bond measure to build two new schools and to purchase portable classrooms to relieve overcrowding in the 14,228-student elementary school district.

But bond supporters and school officials worried that voters might be weary of approving another tax increase so soon after passing a similar $57-million bond measure in November to build a new high school.

“What we tried to emphasize to voters was that this would be completing the job they started in November,” said Armando Lopez, chairman of the Yes on Measure J Committee. “But it’s always tough to ask somebody to tax themselves.”

Even before the results were known, supporters had made plans to go back to the voters in June with another bond election if the measure failed, Lopez said.

“This is too important,” Lopez said. “The schools are the foundation of the quality of life in the city.”

Also faced with overcrowding, Fillmore school officials had proposed a $12-million bond measure to complete construction of Fillmore Middle School by adding 32 new classrooms. Built 10 years ago, the school has a mere five classrooms and serves only seventh and eighth grades.

The Fillmore measure included funds for adding a sixth-grade class at the middle school in a move to relieve overcrowding, Supt. Mario Contini said.

The middle school is split between two campuses, one of them the site of the old Fillmore Junior High. About half of the middle school’s 250 students must now walk a quarter of a mile from one campus to the other for certain classes, he said.

Before the vote was known, Contini said that if the bond measure failed, the entire 3,600-student district might have to switch to a multitrack system, where some students would attend school in the morning and others later in the day.

The district had already taken out an $850,000 loan to build four classrooms at the junior high regardless of Tuesday’s results, Contini said. The classrooms should be ready by July, he said.

“This is critical to the community,” Contini said. “We have no choice.”

After the final count, Contini said he was thrilled by the win, saying that supporters gathered at a victory party were “as high as a kite.”

Said Contini: “This means 10 years of hard work trying to provide for the kids has finally come to pass. It’s just been such a lot of effort for the community. I look at this as a real, true statement on the part of the community to make sure kids are taken care of and all the community is playing a major role in that.”

Instead of building new schools or adding more classrooms, officials of Hueneme School District, whose boundaries include Port Hueneme and portions of Oxnard, asked voters to approve a $4.7-million bond measure to renovate their 11 schools, which range in age from 30 to 70 years.

The Hueneme School District measure provided funds to replace windows, doors and chalkboards as well as outdated plumbing, said Associate Supt. Jeff Baarstad, who was also a member of the Measure K campaign committee.

The last time the district asked voters to approve a bond measure was in the late 1950s, Baarstad said.

“We know that voters do not have a bottomless pit of money,” he said. “So we ask them infrequently for their support. In this case, we’re not building new schools. We just want to make sure the schools we have are good for another 30 or 40 years.”

Staff writer Kate Folmar and correspondent Regina Hong contributed to this story.