Passage of School Bond Is Urged

Thirty years have passed since Linda Evans whiled away hot afternoons in the windowless cellblock of classrooms that her son at Crescenta Valley High School today calls the “bunker” building.

Evans, 46, now the dean of students, wants it leveled.

Heartened that Burbank and Los Angeles voters approved school bond measures last month, she and other Glendale school supporters are exhorting residents to pass a $186-million bond measure on June 3 to help renovate facilities that date from the 1920s.

It is the first bond referendum in Glendale since 1964--and yet another example, observers say, of how consultants are called into town to help local school activists try to sway two-thirds of the voters to their cause.

“We try not to deal with things that are abstract, like, ‘These children will be the next generation of leaders,’ ” said Oakland-based consultant Larry Tramutola, who worked for Burbank and is now working as a Glendale schools’ booster.

“What we try to do is talk specifics,” Tramutola said, “the nuts-and-bolts things that need to be done to the schools.”

Longtime school activist Mary Boger said money is needed to fix deteriorating plumbing, heating, electrical and lighting systems, along with cramped classrooms that are ill-equipped for modern use.

“Our facilities are just worn out,” said Glendale Schools Supt. James A. Brown, who served as the Palo Alto school superintendent when 81% of the voters approved a $141 million bond measure two years ago.

In addition to the aged facilities, the 30,000-student district has seen a decade-long surge of enrollment of immigrant children, including those of Armenian descent in south Glendale, school spokesman Vic Pallos said. Also squeezing resources is the district’s effort to reduce first-grade classes to 20 students each, in concert with the statewide class-reduction initiative that began last year, he said.

Of Measure K’s $186 million in proceeds, administrators have earmarked $30 million for building two new elementary schools and either a small magnet high school or a middle school, Pallos said. The remaining $156 million will go toward the renovation and expansion of existing facilities, with La Crescenta High School due to receive $22.2 million, the largest share.

“We’re a remarkable high school on a middle school campus,” Crescenta Principal Gary Talbert said of the facility that was erected during the Great Depression.

With 2,300 students crowded onto 18 hillside acres--half the recommended size--Talbert’s campus spills onto the adjacent elementary-school grounds and ultimately will have 17 movable, or bungalow, classrooms, he said.

“We keep taking away the elementary kids’ playground,” said Linda Evans’ 18-year-old son, Chris, a senior, during a break in his advanced-placement studies. “It’s like stealing their innocence.”

Fellow senior Bobby Donnelly, describing his room in another building as “horrible,” said the clunky air conditioner is too loud when it’s on but the room is too hot when it’s off.

Flanked by the exposed pipes of a converted boiler room, one of Evans’ former classmates, 46-year-old teacher Sherry Taylor, said, “This is my little bomb shelter here, also known as a classroom.”

In a poll of residents, Tramutola’s firm found that 74% would support a measure that would cost homeowners an average of $49.91 per $100,000 of assessment for the next 32 years, district spokesman Pallos said. Two-thirds of those who vote, or 66.7%, is required for passage.

While there is no organized opposition to Glendale’s bond issue, some members of the community, such as Beala Neel, question the district’s stated need for cash.

“I feel the money should be concentrated on academics as opposed to brick and mortar,” the 52-year-old art director said. “What we need is discipline . . . to eliminate coddling programs.”

Glendale boosters look to the success of bonds in the Los Angeles and Burbank school districts.

“Does recent success say anything about the next round?” asked political consultant Brad Senden. “The answer is yes, because underpinning the willingness to give some of your tax money is the strength of the economy.”

Supt. Brown, noting that Glendale’s bond proponents closely monitored their peers in Burbank, said, “After [successful campaigns in] Los Angeles and Burbank, there’s a climate now that’s supportive for this measure . . ..

“People know the relationship between good schools and the quality of life in the community--it’s property tax values,” Brown said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

School Improvements

Glendale residents will be voting on a $186-million bond measure June 3 to help renovate Glendale Unifed schools. Projected cost for improvements at each school:

*--*

Cost in millions Balboa $2.7 Cerritos 5.8 Columbus 7.8 Crescenta Valley 22.2 Daily .5 Dunsmore 2.4 Edison 7.8 Franklin 3.3 Fremont 2.2 Glendale 11.8 Glenoaks 2.7 Hoover 10.9 Jefferson 2.4 Keppel 4.2 La Crescenta 3.0 Lincoln 2.8 Main 3.1 Marshall 2.4 Monte Vista 3.2 Mountain Avenue 2.2 Muir 2.7 Roosevelt 8.6 Rosemont 6.4 Toll 10.9 Verdugo Woodlands 3.0 White 3.8 Wilson 7.3 Other facilities 10.0 Site acquisition and 30.0 construction District total $186.0

*--*