April Election Considered for 2 School Bonds

Thwarted by voters in November, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark school officials will decide this week whether to put their school bond measures back on the ballot in April.

Rather than wait for the crowded June ballot--when voters could decide everything from the next U.S. senator to the fate of bilingual education--both school districts are considering an April 14 special election.

Although more expensive, the April date would provide an uncluttered ballot, drawing to the polls those chiefly interested in the school bond, and giving it--based on history--a better chance at success.

“I think in April their chances are very good,” county schools Supt. Charles Weis said. “They will have the attention of the local public, and it will probably pass in April.”

The timing and campaign lessons learned from the November election could give the two districts a better shot at the two-thirds majority needed to pass a school bond, officials say.

Conejo Valley Unified School District trustees Wednesday are expected to vote to try again for ballot approval of a $97-million school bond initiative--the largest such measure in county history. In November, it was the largest measure in the state to fail.

In neighboring Moorpark, school board members said they support another bid for a $16.2-million bond measure, but may adjust that amount slightly at Tuesday’s meeting.

The districts face a Friday deadline to inform the superintendent’s office about placing measures on the April ballot.

In November, both bond measures fell just shy of victory: Conejo Valley’s by less than 3 percentage points and Moorpark’s by less than 2 percentage points.

But school officials predict their chances will be better the second time around.

“I think we feel very confident that we had a great show of support in November and the groundwork has been laid for a very, very strong campaign for April,” said Frank DePasquale, an assistant superintendent at Moorpark Unified. “We’re feeling very optimistic.”

While school bonds in Ventura County fared miserably during the early 1990s, several districts over the past two years have succeeded in winning support for borrowing plans. In fact, Conejo Valley and Moorpark are the only districts that failed to pass a school bond measure from among the 10 districts that pursued bonds this year.

The Oxnard School District lost its $57-million school bond measure in March, but got the go-ahead from voters when it tried again for the same amount in June.

Both eastern Ventura County districts got hurt by other distractions on the November ballot, supporters said.

Conejo Valley schools competed with the contentious recall campaign to oust Thousand Oaks Councilwoman Elois Zeanah.

“It does seem to me that April might be a little better because you don’t get them tangled with other issues,” said Jon Steepee, political science department chairman at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

“The last bond issue in this area, the schools took a certain amount of beating because they got identified with the City Council election, whether it was intentional or not, and that cost them votes,” Steepee said.

Moorpark schools shared the ballot with a city measure to tax residents for parks.

“I’m not saying the city was an albatross around our neck,” Moorpark Unified Trustee Tom Baldwin said. “But it’s better to be alone because this time we can target the people we want to.”

The June ballot will be crowded with primary elections and other initiatives, including some contentious measures involving education.

A school bond measure in June would find itself on the same ballot as the “95/5” initiative, which proposes to limit administrative expenses to 5% of a school district’s budget.

Likewise, a measure proposed by Silicon Valley software entrepreneur Ron K. Unz to end most bilingual programs in favor of English-only classrooms could also qualify for the June ballot.

Both could bring anti-school voters to the poll, or at the least divert attention from the school bond measures, schools’ chief Weis said.

“June will be a very, very full ballot; a two-page ballot and school bonds tend to get lost,” Weis said. The media will very likely devote more attention to larger issues, which in turn means less information to the public on the schools’ needs, he added.

But deciding to place a measure on the April ballot has its costs--namely opening the polls and counting the votes just for the bond election.

The county clerk’s office estimates it will cost Moorpark about $20,000 to $25,000 to hold a special election and Conejo Valley more than $100,000.

Thousand Oaks parent Robin Westmiller, who actively campaigned against Conejo’s school bond in November, bristled at the district’s talk of pursuing another bond measure and balked at the price for such an election, calling the $100,000-plus cost “a waste.”

“They will keep spending taxpayer money until they get what they want. That’s real childish,” Westmiller said.

But school officials argue the districts must move forward as soon as possible with a bond measure, because the needs of the schools are more immediate.

“April is the next possible time to go,” Conejo Supt. Jerry Gross said. “It will be our first opportunity to try again and we want our funding before June. There’s a lot of stuff we need to do in the summer.”

If the bond measure passes, the district plans to modernize its 26 campuses, install computer wiring in some classrooms, build four middle-school gyms and a pool at Westlake High School.

Westmiller, who filed the first argument against a school bond in the county’s history, argued the bond measure contained funding for too many frills such as air-conditioning and said school officials should not have let the campuses become so dilapidated.

School officials, however, counter that money for improving school facilities has been short since the post-Proposition 13 era.

Moorpark would use the bulk of its bond money to create more classrooms, build a gymnasium at Moorpark High School, improve classroom technology and renovate the two oldest campuses: Flory School and Chaparral Middle School.

Beyond the timing of the election, school boosters say they learned valuable lessons from the failed fall campaigns.

Moorpark, for instance, waited too late to mail information on the measure, sending fliers a week or two before election day, school trustees said.

“I think we hit the ground a little too late,” Trustee David Pollock said. “We really got our message out there right toward the time people voted so we missed out on the absentee ballots and that’s what beat us.”

While 69% of the voters in the precincts favored the measure, only 55% of those who cast absentee ballots backed it--dragging the total below the required 66.6%.

Many of the absentee voters, who represented a quarter of the votes cast, sent their ballots in before they received the fliers, Pollock said.

Also, Moorpark officials say they will be careful to place the correct figure for the bond amount on the ballot. During the November election, a clerical error on the school district’s part made the bond amount on the official ballot technically $16 trillion, rather than $16 million.

In Thousand Oaks, community members who led the bond campaign said they would make a more concerted effort to show the public a list of school needs.

“We’ve got to let the public know when the list is coming and release it widely,” said Patti Yomantas, who headed the committee for the failed bond measure.

The committee will also consider holding public forums and targeting preschool parents more heavily. They also plan to target voters who are in favor of the bond but may not make it to the polls.

“We’ve got to hammer it into people’s heads that California still needs a two-thirds majority vote,” Yomantas said.

“We’ve got to remind people not to be ambivalent and let their neighbors vote for them. They just can’t find excuses this time.”