Businesses Unwilling to Back Anaheim School Bond

With a vote to raise money for one of the county’s poorest and most crowded districts less than two weeks away, Anaheim’s political and business leaders are on the sidelines, reluctant to see taxes rise--though their support likely is critical.

If Measure Y, which would raise $48 million for school construction, passes April 14, it would be the first school bond measure to be approved in fiscally conservative Orange County in eight years.

Bond measures proposed in the county have seldom been successful without heavy lobbying and widespread support from community leaders.

But while hundreds of parents whose children attend schools in the cash-strapped Anaheim City School District are stuffing envelopes and staffing phone banks to drum up support for the measure, neither Disneyland, which sits in the middle of the district, nor the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce nor the City Council has thrown support behind it.

“We went to them asking for help, and we got nothing,” said Jacinth Cisneros, a parent leading the campaign in the 20,000-student district, whose 6% annual rate of enrollment growth is more than double the state average.

“We sent letters out to just about every business in Anaheim, and we have gotten little or no replies, much less support,” she said. “It’s frustrating. This is the right thing to do, not just for the children, but for the city. But we have gotten silence. It really stacks the odds against us.”

Disneyland, the largest property owner in the district with holdings valued at more than $150 million, was approached in December by parents pushing the measure.

Hundreds of the amusement park’s employees, many immigrants in low-level service jobs, have children in the crowded schools. But the company has neither donated money nor endorsed the campaign.

“I don’t believe in general that Disneyland is staying neutral on efforts to help schools,” Bill Ross, the amusement park’s spokesman, said. “I think it has shown a long history of offering special programs that probably set the standard in corporate school support.”

He cited arts and drug education programs for Anaheim schoolchildren funded and managed by Walt Disney Co., donations of computers and other equipment to schools, and a Disneyland school band concert program.

“But at the same time, Disneyland is a large property owner, and I think we believe strongly that the value and importance of the Orange County economy is very important,” he said. “We feel very strongly that any benefits of this will go to the homeowners. And as a result of that, we will not take a position.”

The elementary school district, the largest of five feeding one high school district in Anaheim, is in crisis by most measures. Enrollment has grown by more than 1,000 students a year for the past decade. Every one of the district’s 22 schools runs on a year-round schedule, and, starting July 1, students at 19 schools will split times in the same classrooms, with some attending in the morning and the rest in the afternoon.

With nowhere else to turn for funds--the state Department of Education says there is a backlog of $6 billion in requests for school construction money--parents in the district decided to try to pass a bond measure, almost always a losing proposition in Orange County. The last time school bond proponents won such a campaign in the county was in Los Alamitos in 1990.

Measure Y, whose slogan is “Yes for Children,” would raise taxes in the district by $22 a year for each $100,000 of assessed property. For most homeowners, that would mean a tax increase of less than $80 a year.

Businesses that are large property owners, including Disney, hotels and technology firms, would pay more.

With the exception of many Anaheim real estate agents, conscious that better schools tend to drive up property values, most major businesses in the city have said that the district’s problems are best solved by someone else.

“Businesses feel they’re already taxed heavily and that to add to the taxation, well, they basically oppose anything that’s going to add to their tax burden,” said Mike Neben, public affairs manager for Anaheim’s Chamber of Commerce.

Though parents approached the organization for support, the chamber voted last month not to take a position on the issue.

“They feel that schools should be doing everything they can to reduce costs, to privatize services, to do other things that are beneficial, and they also feel it is a state responsibility to come up with funds for school construction,” Neben said.

The city’s political leadership has been similarly lukewarm toward the measure.

Mayor Tom Daly, the only member of the five-person council who lives in the district, has two children in schools there and has endorsed the bond measure. But he said he has not openly campaigned for it.

“I have endorsed it, but the campaign is driven by PTA leaders and school leaders,” Daly said. “I am not out there pitching for it.”

Councilman Bob Zemel, a Republican firmly opposed to new taxes, has taken a stand against Measure Y.

“I don’t care if the schools are 40 years old,” he said. “There are schools in other parts of the country that are 140 years old, and they’re not having a problem.”

“If you don’t spend the money right over the course of 30 years, 30 years later when the school is old, you don’t have money to maintain it. The current school officials just haven’t made the hard decisions.”

Proponents of the measure say that to compare Anaheim schools to those in other parts of the country, or even the county, misses the point. Unlike schools in South County, where developer fees generally pay for new campuses, those in Anaheim must contend with enrollment growth that has not been accompanied by new funds generated by construction.

Instead, the influx of students is the result of changing demographics in some of the county’s poorest urban areas. The last new school in the district was built in 1965. Today, portable classrooms crowd out playgrounds and parking lots on district campuses. School buildings have doors that don’t lock, fire alarms that don’t always work and plumbing that backs up.

Parents and school district officials say that, with those realities facing their children every day, they will not allow mixed feelings among city leaders to sink their proposal.

“This generation of kids deserves the space in schools that all of us had the opportunity to have,” district Supt. Roberta Thompson said. “This is simply too urgent a need to ignore.”