Eight Districts Ask Voters for Funds to Repair Campuses

The principal of Hickory Elementary School in Torrance keeps a bunch of sandbags stowed in a locker bay near the school’s outdoor eating area, a hedge against the flooding that even a light rain invariably produces at the 36-year-old campus.

The school’s custodians regularly spend precious time and district resources cleaning up after illicit weekend parties held in poorly lighted nooks. Students wait in long lines to use the those restrooms that are still functioning. And its teachers have blown countless fuses plugging a fan or an overhead projector into an antiquated electrical system.

“Things are falling down around our feet,” Principal Jann Feldman said recently as she prepared to lead parents, elected officials and reporters on a tour of the sprawling campus in a quiet neighborhood of well-tended homes.

In Torrance, and in seven other school and college districts around Los Angeles County, officials are counting on voters to ride to the rescue next month by providing money to modernize and expand crumbling campuses or build new ones. The districts are seeking approval for bond measures ranging from $15.5 million for a new middle school in Lancaster to $240 million for aging facilities in Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre.

Most bond issues run 25 or 30 years.

Advocates see these measures as relatively low-cost--and long overdue--ways to fix and expand the schools, most of which were built at least 30 years ago and need new wiring, plumbing, roofs and other repairs. They say the measures are good investments in communities where real estate values hinge at least in part on the quality of public education.

But opponents have surfaced in at least some of the campaigns, arguing that districts should have found other ways to take care of their facilities before asking taxpayers to dig deeper into their pockets. Such arguments resonated earlier this year in cities including Torrance, Pomona and El Segundo, where previous bond measures were narrowly defeated.

School bond measures are increasingly common in local elections as districts scramble to renovate aging buildings. Maintenance and improvements have been deferred during several years of tight school budgets and intense competition for state facilities funds. Districts have had to accommodate growing numbers of children and, in the last couple of years, also have had to find more space to join the state’s drive to reduce class size.

“We’ve spent $11 million on facilities in the last five years, and we’re tapped out,” said Lawndale School District Supt. Joseph Condon, whose board put a $31-million measure on the ballot.

With all the measures requiring two-thirds approval for passage, campaigns to get sympathetic voters to the polls are intensifying as the Nov. 4 election draws near. Some of the campaigns have hired professionals to help them map strategy.

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Backers of two of the bigger bond proposals, $240 million for Pasadena Unified and $93.1 million for Las Virgenes Unified, have hired Larry Tramutola, whose Oakland-based Tramutola Co. has managed 55 school bond campaigns in California over the last three years. Fifty-one of those succeeded, including measures in Manhattan Beach and South Pasadena in 1995 and in Burbank and Glendale last spring.

If it wins voter approval, the Las Virgenes measure will add up to $29 per $100,000 of assessed valuation to a property owner’s tax bill. The measure would enable the district to build a new middle school and two elementary schools, add classrooms to existing campuses and make renovations including electrical upgrades and remodeled restrooms.

Las Virgenes, which draws students from the well-heeled communities of Agoura, Agoura Hills, Hidden Hills and Westlake Village, has been working on its bond campaign for well over a year, and the measure has drawn no organized opposition.

Yet two tax measures on the Agoura Hills city ballot--a utility users tax on business and industry and a special parcel tax for library facilities--could make voters reluctant to approve a school bond measure as well.

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School district and city officials talked about the wisdom of asking voters for several tax bites at once, according to deputy Supt. Donald Zimring. “The city tried to be as understanding as possible, but they have their needs as well,” he said.

In Pasadena, bond measure backers face several challenges. The City Council tonight will consider increasing utility rates, raising concerns that voters will be reluctant to authorize more taxes. Measure Y would add $56 per $100,000 of assessed valuation to the property tax annually.

Further, one in four school-age youngsters attends private or parochial school, according to district officials. And although the measure enjoys broad support among civic and business leaders, its opponents include a parent in the district who is waging a guerrilla campaign on a Web page critical of district spending. A favorite target is a $30,000 expenditure for district officials to attend a recent planning retreat in Newport Beach.

Pasadena’s campaign, like many others, focuses on needs--and points out that the monies can be spent only on school campuses themselves and not on such often-controversial items as administrative costs or teachers’ salaries.

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The average age of the schools in the district, which also includes Altadena and Sierra Madre, is 55 years. The oldest school, Longfellow Elementary, was designed 85 years ago by fabled architects Greene and Greene. Historic but in need of repair, its flaws include a leaky roof, water-damaged walls, worn-out flooring, dim lighting and antiquated plumbing, heating and electrical wiring.

In Torrance, where an $80.5-million bond measure last spring failed when it garnered 58% of the vote instead of the required 66.6%, officials this time around are listing exactly what work the bonds would enable at each of the district’s 31 schools. The district developed the lists with the help of a citizens oversight committee, and it switched from a complicated type of bond to the more traditional general obligation bonds in asking voters for the same amount this fall.

Backers also have established detailed campaign plans headed by PTAs at each school, which are overseeing telephone banks, precinct walks and yard sign distributions, according to Alan W. Gafford, campaign coordinator for the “Measure K for Kids” campaign.

Opponents of last spring’s bond measure have stayed organized and have stuck to their theme that the district should have found other ways to pay for maintenance over the years.

“The need is there; we are not blind,” said Shawn Moonan, father of two students at Arnold Elementary and head of the “K’s Not the Way” campaign.

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“But we should be looking at current spending before asking for more tax dollars. I’m really skeptical about their whole process of budgeting,” Moonan added.

Supt. Arnold Plank, who is walking precincts on weekends, said the district had no choice but to defer many maintenance projects if it did not want to slice deeply into instructional programs.

All the bond measure efforts, with or without paid professional guidance, are headed by volunteer committees working the phones, sending out campaign mailers and pounding the sidewalks to get sympathetic voters to the polls in what have become notoriously low-turnout elections. (By law, school districts cannot expend taxpayer funds on political campaigns, so committees formed to pass bond measures must rely on private contributions to get their message out.)

Last spring, backers of a $24-million bond measure for El Segundo Unified lost their campaign by just 31 votes. They’re trying again Nov. 4, and the campaign co-chairman for both efforts sees low voter turnout as the measure’s biggest hurdle.

“We had a tremendous amount of voter apathy,” said longtime El Segundo community leader Pete Charland of the effort that failed June 3.

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“We had 1,600-plus parent supporters who did not go to the polls. They told us [in campaign post-mortem surveys] they thought it would pass, that their votes weren’t necessary.”

“This time, we are trying to give people the message that this is important, that everybody’s vote does count,” Charland said. The committee has added lawn signs and a concerted get-out-the-vote drive, which includes volunteers to take voters to the polls, he added.

Other districts seeking bond measures include the sprawling Mt. San Antonio Community College District in Walnut, whose 39,500 students make it the largest junior college in California. Its $122-million bond measure, which would affect 16 communities in eastern Los Angeles County, would add $9.72 per $100,000 of assessed valuation to annual property taxes.

Proceeds would be used to add five buildings to the campus and renovate others to give the campus a modern science complex, an enlarged child development center and a new business and economic development and training center. Opposing the measure is West Covina school board trustee Mike Spence, who has said in ballot statements that taxpayers should not be asked to foot the bill.

Bassett Unified School District, drawing mainly from unincorporated county territory near La Puente, is seeking $19 million to renovate classrooms, repair termite damage, improve library facilities and science labs and update electrical, plumbing and energy systems. No organized opposition has surfaced.

Eastside Union School District in Lancaster is asking voters for $15.5 million to build a new middle school and improve existing campuses.

“Our board doesn’t like to ask for taxes, but the time is right, the need is there, and everybody seems to be ready,” Supt. Connie Webb said.

Times correspondent Richard Winton contributed to this story.

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Going to the Voters

Here are the school and college districts in Los Angeles County with bond measures on the Nov. 4 ballot, and the amount of money sought in each measure.

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(In Millions)

Basset Unified: $19.0

Eastside Union: 15.5

El Segundo Unified: 24.0

Las Virgenes Unified: 93.1

Lawndale: 31.0

Mt. San Antonio Community College: 122.0

Pasadena Unified: 240.0

Snowline Joint Unified: 6.5

Torrance Unified: 80.5

Sources: County registrar recorder