Backers of School Bond Learn Lesson, Alter Tactics

Still smarting from a narrow defeat in November, backers of a $2.4-billion Los Angeles school repair bond measure are running a more aggressive campaign this spring that is using trusted community leaders to win over skeptics.

Gone are the out-of-town consultant and the radio spots used in last year’s push for Proposition BB, which would raise funds to fix hundreds of deteriorating L.A. school district campuses.

Instead, the bond campaign’s $760,000 budget has been spent on L.A.-based consultants, more direct mailings to voters to emphasize absentee ballots, a new phone-banking system housed in a mobile big rig, and nine new field representatives making the rounds to high schools, parent meetings and business gatherings.

Proponents also have enlisted the help of high school students--a sizable volunteer group that was virtually ignored in the November campaign--to register their peers to vote in next Tuesday’s election and spread the message among parents. And a TV commercial plugging the bond is scheduled to air this weekend on local network affiliate stations.

“It’s a better targeted campaign now,” said Erik Nasarenko, spokesman for Angelenos for Better Classrooms, a coalition of PTAs, unions and business groups that has run both campaigns.

Nevertheless, the bond measure faces a challenge that relatively few tax increase proposals have been able to meet since California voters passed Proposition 13 in 1978. In the November election, Proposition BB received 65.7% of the vote but fell short of the 66.7% majority required. The measure would cost Los Angeles Unified School District taxpayers an average of $37.14 a year for each $100,000 of assessed property value. A Los Angeles Times poll taken last week showed the measure falling short again.

Nasarenko said he and other organizers learned several lessons from their failure last fall.

“We were last on a [statewide] ballot with so many measures that were going to raise taxes and we really suffered with that,” Nasarenko said. “Plus, we just didn’t have a system in place then like the one we have now.”

Last year, the campaign raised only $430,000 and relied on a few radio announcements, one direct mailing, one phone bank and word of mouth to rally voters. It also conducted most of its business from the group’s downtown L.A. office.

In preparing for this year’s campaign, organizers were convinced by a series of focus groups that voters would be more receptive if endorsements of the bond came from people in their communities rather than downtown bureaucrats. So the group marshaled the help of PTA members to recount tales of leaky roofs, cracked playground asphalt, broken toilets and lack of space in their children’s schools.

Efforts to sell the bond to male voters, whether Democrats or Republicans, were scaled back after consultants found that few men in the focus groups made a connection between the welfare of children and the physical condition of schools. Women of all political persuasions, meanwhile, tended to show more empathy, consultants found. Black and Latino voters across the district, who supported the measure in large numbers in November, needed to be coaxed to cast a ballot in a nonpresidential election, according to the voter research.

In the San Fernando Valley, where less than 58% of voters supported the bond last November, proponents needed to convince a skeptical, predominantly white electorate that the school district would be responsible with the funds, and that Valley schools wouldn’t be cheated out of sorely needed air conditioners.

“We’re targeting different people differently,” said campaign consultant Susan Burnside.

In an election expected to draw no more than 300,000 voters--most of them conservative opponents of any potential tax hike--bond proponents say they are looking for any possible advantage.

Among the biggest boosts this time has been Mayor Richard Riordan’s endorsement and the support of the United Teachers-Los Angeles--two forces that were silent in November.

Riordan, who has long been publicly disdainful of the school district’s financial management, endorsed the bond measure only after insisting on the creation of an impartial committee of outsiders to ensure that the funds would be spent as promised.

As they campaign, bond backers tout the resulting Citizens Oversight Committee as a strong reason that voters who share Riordan’s distrust of the school district can believe their tax money will be spent honestly. The nine-member committee will be appointed by 10 organizations and offices, including the County Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the mayor.

“The mayor’s support is so important because he particularly appeals to people who wouldn’t jump up and support the bond,” said school board President Jeff Horton.

The teachers union supported the bond last November but was not active in the campaign. This time, however, in addition to a $70,000 donation, the union has covered printing costs for vote-by-mail applications, lawn signs and posters, and already has sent three mailings to its 30,000 members. The union that represents teachers’ assistants and other instructional aides, Service Employees International Union Local 99, contributed $50,000 to the campaign in addition to operating phone banks.

Unlike last fall, district officials ordered all 899 schools and children’s centers to hold special faculty meetings Feb. 25 to discuss voter registration and absentee ballots, and to watch a five-minute video discussing the bond. At the same time, banners proclaiming support of the bond were hung from every school building.

But the campaign’s biggest effort has been sending its agents directly into neighborhoods, seven days a week, to meet with voters. Typical is a town hall meeting in East Los Angeles tonight where students from cross-town rivals Garfield and Roosevelt high schools are expected to voice support for the bond.

“We’ve gone to over 250 events from Democratic clubs to PTA meetings to community meetings,” said consultant Burnside. “We’ve done more community contacting in a month than the whole campaign did last time.”

The campaign’s largest single event, a districtwide walk through voting precincts, is set for Saturday.

Despite the enthusiasm in the new Proposition BB campaign, the message hasn’t convinced all those it has reached.

Northridge resident Lee Alpert, whose council district in the northwest San Fernando Valley had the lowest percent of voter support for the bond last fall, said more taxes and the school district’s poor reputation for handling finances are major disincentives. However, Riordan’s support for the bond may sway Alpert and other voters in his area, a Riordan stronghold, to give it a chance.

“When [Riordan] makes that kind of endorsement,” Alpert said, “people are going to take a second look.”

* THE TIMES POLL: Unless voter turnout tops expectations, Proposition BB appears headed for defeat. B1