Neighbors at Odds Over School Bond Election

At first glance, it looked like a slam-dunk to win a special $3-million school bond election on Tuesday to construct a new library and multipurpose building for the elementary school in Mt. Washington, a hilly community northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Everyone involved believes a new library is needed. They also agree that Mt. Washington school needs an indoor assembly area, a cafeteria and an auditorium--things the new building would also provide. To top it off, the new building would be named for Jack Smith, the late columnist for The Times who wrote lovingly about Mt. Washington, the eclectic enclave where he lived for nearly 40 years.

But things are not that simple in Tuesday’s election, which requires a two-thirds majority of votes cast for passage.

It involves only a small part of the city: Mt. Washington and some neighborhoods down the hill, Cypress Park, Glassell Park and Highland Park. It is authorized by a state law allowing property owners in neighborhoods to vote bonds and pay them off through a special property tax. The proceeds are to be used to pay for neighborhood public improvements.

Some voters outside Mt. Washington are upset that they could be taxed even though their children go to public school elsewhere.

Those residents, mostly blue-collar Latinos, say it isn’t fair that they should have to pay for something up the hill in more upscale Mt. Washington. Residents of the blue-collar neighborhoods say Mt. Washington residents have shown little interest in issues important down the hill.

That argument hits home especially hard in Cypress Park, which felt the glare of unforgiving publicity in the wake of the 1995 fatal shooting a 3-year-old girl in a blind alley.

“[The library] is great if it’s needed,” said longtime Cypress Park activist Art Pulido. “But don’t bring it down to Cypress Park and have us pick up the tab.”

“This is taxation without representation,” said Guillermo Reyes, a Cypress Park resident who lives within the attendance area of Aragon Avenue Elementary School. Noting that Mt. Washington residents have staged fund-raising events for the new building, Reyes sighed, “I wish we had that kind of money for books [at Aragon].”

The Glassell Park Improvement Assn., a group of 300 members located west and down the hill from Mt. Washington, agreed with naysayers and voted May 18 to oppose the bond issue.

Although there are no specific figures available, about 20% of the eligible 5,200 voters live outside of Mt. Washington.

For supporters, the criticism stings because they originally thought of limiting the vote and the tax assessment to Mt. Washington. But deciding to seek a wider consensus, supporters expanded the boundaries of the vote in an attempt to bring unity to a number of communities northeast of downtown. Residents in those communities could also use the new facility, supporters say.

“It made no sense to us that if we’re going to be a community that we don’t include the [entire] community,” said Warren Christensen of Mt. Washington, a chief supporter of the bond issue.

For Marilyn Mehlmauer president of the Friends of Mt. Washington School, the new two-story building is needed. “The children have no place to eat indoors if it’s raining,” she said. “They have no place for assembly except for on the playground. In this day and age, this is not acceptable,”

Opponents in Cypress Park reply that it is unlikely they would use the new building, because they already have a public library and a recreation center for community meetings.

Critics are also rankled because most were unaware that outside areas might be subject to the tax levy. For some, the first news of that came recently in the mail in the form of a sample ballot.

In a Cypress Park meeting this week, Christensen apologized for failing to adequately inform residents about the bond measure, but he added that the supporters in Mt. Washington were convinced they were right in seeking a wider consensus and vote on the proposed building.

There is also the issue of money.

Had the measure been confined solely to Mt. Washington, homeowners there would have had to pay $87 a year for 30 years to pay for the 8,000-square-foot building.

Now, with portions of the surrounding communities included, the yearly assessment in Mt. Washington would be $67 for 30 years. The assessment in Cypress Park, Glassell Park and Highland Park would be lower, $33.50.

The bond issue election represents the first time such a vote has been held in an effort to finance a building in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The election culminates a seven-year battle for the new building. At times, parents and residents were frustrated because either the school district wouldn’t pay for it or plans for the building were met with roadblocks. Once, some objected when a three-story building was proposed. Another time, some objected with the building was planned for the northern corner of campus.

Despite the setbacks, the campaign in Mt. Washington has never stopped, especially after Smith agreed in 1994 to lend his name to the building. He died two years later, but his widow, Denise, has been involved in current fund-raising efforts.