Supporters Intensify Campaign for $97-Million Conejo Schools Bond

With less than two weeks until Conejo Valley voters choose whether to pass the largest school bond in Ventura County history, community members who want to fix up local schools are spending serious amounts of time schmoozing on the phone, licking stamps and stuffing envelopes to support the measure.

On Thursday, the parents and off-duty teachers and principals who make up the Committee for Measure Q picked up freshly printed endorsement packets and worked well into the evening, trying to get out about 10,000 to 15,000 pieces of mail.

A second round of postcards are on deck to be mailed later next week. Memos attached to the regular PTA newsletter urged absentee voters to send in their ballots early.

And volunteers will continue to invade sympathetic real estate offices during the evenings to borrow phones and talk to anyone who will listen on why the district’s 30-year-old schools need repair.

“This would be an unbelievably overwhelming task were it not for all these wonderful volunteers,” said Patti Yomantas, co-chairwoman of the committee.

On Nov. 4, Thousand Oaks residents will decide the financial fate of the 26-school Conejo Valley Unified School District, pulling the ballot lever in support or opposition of the $97-million bond. To be approved, the measure must receive the support of two-thirds of those casting ballots.

The money would go toward repair of aging underground pipes, paving parking lots, rewiring schools for updated computer technology, installation of air-conditioning systems and building more than 30 new classrooms.

Residents would pay nearly $25 on each $100,000 of assessed property value for as long as 40 years.

While a slew of parents and district staff members are spending their evenings appealing to the most-likely voters, one dissenter--with no known supporters--is making phone calls and writing letters of her own: to voice her disgust with what she calls the district’s spend-thrift attitude.

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Robin Westmiller, a Thousand Oaks stationery store owner, said she has already sent a letter to the Ventura County district attorney’s office alleging the district illegally spent taxpayers’ money on school signs advocating the bond.

“I don’t want my taxpayer money to support a banner that says ‘Yes’ on Measure Q,” said Westmiller, who spent several days last month taking photographs of bond signs at the schools to make sure that they did not violate city size requirements. She also said it was unfair that she was told she could not put up anti-Measure Q signs of her own on school property.

Westmiller is the only person in the county’s history to file a rebuttal letter against a school bond measure. She has repeatedly stated the district should have been able to maintain its schools without a multimillion-dollar bond, and that children don’t need frills such as air-conditioning.

“The word ‘yes’ is not on those signs,” said Assistant Supt. Gary Mortimer , adding that the district always checks with its attorneys on the legalities of putting on an informational campaign regarding a school bond measure. “The signs only say what Measure Q will provide. It sounds like she’s just at it again.”

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Despite Westmiller’s opposition, morale on the Committee for Measure Q has not been dampened.

“We’ve never lost our spirit, even though we’ve been tired at times,” Yomantas said.

To date, the committee has raised $28,090, collecting $9,660 during the campaign reporting period of Sept. 21 to Oct. 18, according to campaign finance reports filed Thursday.

Many of the donations came from the political action committees of teachers’ unions and builders’ associations, and from architects and construction companies. The largest gift, $10,000, was donated by Amgen Inc. on Oct. 22, but that contribution was included in an amended finance disclosure statement.

“We wanted to go to deeper pockets than our parents,” said Pat Phelps, the committee’s chairwoman.

Measure Q’s supporters have spent about $5,600 through Oct. 18, leaving the group with a war chest of nearly $22,000 going into election day.

In addition to Amgen’s large gift Wednesday, the money has steadily flowed into the committee’s coffers. In the past month, the committee has staged nearly a dozen phone-a-thon nights in which 8,000 people were reached, Yomantas said. She joked the number does not take into account the hang-ups or answering machines contacted.

But of the homeowners who were polled, Yomantas said, about 70% to 80% seemed to be in favor of repairing the schools.

Even with the positive response, the committee volunteers said they won’t give up until the vote is over.

On Nov. 1, supporters will be renting space at Los Cerritos Middle School for a get-out-the-vote rally. They will be served breakfast and hope to knock on up to 7,000 doors to explain why they believe the bond should be approved.

“We feel pretty comfortable that it’s going to be successful,” Yomantas said.