Plan to Aid Primary Schools Fails

Voters in one of the county’s most crowded school districts defeated a $48-million bond measure Tuesday, rejecting a property tax increase that would have raised money to repair deteriorating classrooms and build new campuses.

With all 27 precincts reporting by 10:30 p.m., 5,469 voters, or 55.4%, had cast their ballots against Measure Y, and 4,426, or 44.7%, had voted for the initiative, which would have required a two-thirds majority to win.

With no money in the district’s general fund for construction and repairs, Supt. Roberta Thompson said, officials probably will try to put another bond measure on the ballot.

“Just because we lost doesn’t mean the children of Anaheim deserve any less,” Thompson said. “We will not give up and we will not stop, because we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing if we thought it was that simple.”

Measure Y, dubbed “Yes for the Children” by the hundreds of parents who stuffed envelopes and staffed phone banks to drum up support, would have raised taxes in the strapped school district by $22 a year for each $100,000 of assessed property valuation.

While the grass-roots campaign drew hundreds of volunteers, the proposal was opposed by local Republican leaders wary of tax increases, and it failed to garner the backing of Anaheim’s business and political leaders. Such measures have seldom been successful without heavy lobbying and widespread support.

Only about 20% of the school district’s 50,142 registered voters turned out Tuesday.

Seven similar bond measures were on the ballot Tuesday in Los Angeles County. Based on absentee ballots and early precinct reports, “yes” votes were leading in all seven cases, officials said. Statewide, 51% of such measures have passed since 1986.

The Anaheim bonds would have financed construction of three new schools and repairs to plumbing, electrical and emergency communication systems at the 22 existing schools in the district, which serves 20,000 children. The schools in the district, the largest of five feeding one high school district in Anaheim, are more than 30 years old. Enrollment in the district has grown by more than 1,000 students a year for the past decade, a 6% annual rate that is more than double the state average.

Opponents of the measure cited several reasons, from disapproval of new taxes in general to dissatisfaction with how school officials spend the money they have. Many oppose the district’s policy of offering bilingual education classes to the 61% of its students who speak little or no English.

“Why should you believe [school officials]? Why should you trust them?” asked Hal Rice, a retired teacher who walked door to door in the central Anaheim district handing out pamphlets opposing the measure. “I have no confidence. They say they want to improve the school system. But when they’re finished, somehow the public always winds up with more of the same.”

But parents, children and school district officials sobered by the outcome Tuesday night said they had hoped to get across the message to voters that aging schools would have to be rejuvenated and that children could not learn well in overcrowded classrooms.

“It is tremendously sad for me,” said Jacinth Cisneros, an Anaheim parent who was a leader in the grass-roots campaign for the bond measure. “But we could not have worked any harder or done any better job than we did.”

The campaign, managed by an Oakland-based consulting company, cost about $77,000. It relied on parents to send mailings, staff phone banks and hand out fliers and buttons door to door.

Unlike south Orange County, where developer fees generally pay for new schools, Anaheim has seen enrollment growth unaccompanied by new funds from construction projects. The last new school in the district was built in 1965.

Instead, the influx of students is the result of changing demographics in some of the county’s poorest areas.

Every one of the district’s schools runs on a year-round schedule, and most campuses are crowded by portable classrooms. 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.

State Department of Education officials say there is a backlog of $6 billion in requests for school construction money in California, and President Clinton is proposing federal legislation to spend $5 billion over the next five years to help states and cities rebuild schools.

But in Orange County, opposition to new taxes has sunk every school bond measure in recent years. The last time school bond proponents won such a campaign in the county was in Los Alamitos in 1990. Under the terms of that measure, residents of Leisure World of Seal Beach, which lies within the district, and property owners 65 and older were exempted from paying the new tax.

Measure Y did not provide such exemptions.

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Final Election Returns

Anaheim City School District

Y--School construction bonds (requires 2/3 approval) *--*

100% Precincts Reporting Votes % Yes 4,426 44.7 No* 5,469 55.3

*--*

* Winning side of measure is in bold (*) type.