Conejo Chamber Directors Back School Bond Measure

Directors of the Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce have voted unanimously to support a $97-million school district bond measure up for a vote April 14.

Chamber President-elect Larry Carignan said the 1,100-member group is proud of the Conejo Valley Unified School District’s educational achievements but is dismayed at the state of its campuses.

Next fall, Carignan, who owns a contracting company, will replace the current chamber president, Jerry Gross, who is Conejo Valley Unified’s superintendent. Carignan’s company does not work on school construction, he said.

If approved by two-thirds of voters, Measure V would provide $97 million to wire schools for computers, install air-conditioning, fix old underground pipes, paint walls, repair roofs, pave cracked parking lots and build gymnasiums, a tennis court and swimming pool. Taxpayers would pay $24.36 annually per $100,000 of assessed property value for a maximum of 30 years to repay the debt.

“We believe that the economy is strong and would support this measure,” Carignan wrote in a March 6 letter to school board President Dolores Didio.

The measure, nearly identical to a bond proposal defeated by voters last fall, has drawn little organized opposition apart from the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers.

One opponent, Thousand Oaks resident H. Bruce Driscoll, has taken to the Internet to gauge voters’ thoughts on whether the bond vote should have been scheduled for the special election next month.

Driscoll said he has received 500 responses to a questionnaire sent by electronic mail. Driscoll said 15% of respondents support the special election, 48% say the vote should have been postponed until June, and 37% are opposed to any election so soon after voters defeated the same bond measure.

“I don’t like the tactic of the special election,” Driscoll said. “It’s underhanded. They could have easily waited until June.”

But the district cannot afford to wait until the June election, said Gary Mortimer, assistant superintendent of business services.

“The main reason we’re having an election in April is because there is a great need,” Mortimer said. “Also, if we wait, we can’t start projects this summer; we’d have to wait another year. And that would be unconscionable.”