Daily News of Los Angeles: Bond Failure Analyzed; Disgruntled, Confused Voters Cited

By Bhavna Mistry

On Nov. 2, less than 15,000 of the 93,000 voters in young, affluent and conservative Santa Clarita showed up at the polls to decide Measure A, a $ 52 million school construction bond measure.

And while 65.2 percent favored the bond, the measure did not receive the needed two-thirds majority to authorize a new tax. The money was to help the William S. Hart Union High School District build five schools the growing community desperately needs and to renovate aging schools.

“It’s hard to convince 66 percent of any (group) to vote for one thing,” said Karl Frisch, campaign manager for Measure A. “Under any other circumstance it would have passed.”

Nobody can say why voters turned down a relatively small tax that would produce a much-sought public service. According to a consultant and school district officials, voters who dislike development will vote down the means of dealing with it. Some simply refuse to pay more taxes, and others confound issues of other school districts - particularly the environmental issues surrounding the troubled Belmont Learning Center in Los Angeles.

Measure A lost by a mere 1.4 percent - fewer than 700 votes. It was a blow to the school district, but officials say they still have the momentum to try again.

“The campaign is not going to end,” Frisch said. “I’m fairly confident it will be up to the voters again - and fairly confident it will pass.”

Under Measure A, property owners in the Santa Clarita Valley residents would have paid each year $ 17 per $ 100,000 of assessed property value for 20 years.

Measure A would have qualified the Hart District for $ 114 million in state funding for construction and renovation.

School district officials said the governing board is now left to make the decision whether to proceed with another bond.

“There’s a lot of enthusiasm to try and continue to do things and to get the schools built,” said Mike von Buelow, Hart’s assistant superintendent. “There are many different ideas, including trying to get a bond again.”

While majority rules in most elections, new taxes require two-thirds voter approval to pass, a law some say is outdated.

In fact, an effort is under way in Northern California to reduce the total needed to pass school bond measures to a simple majority, but Frisch holds no confidence.

“We’re looking at the worst possible scenario,” Frisch said. “We’re going to operate under the idea it doesn’t pass.”

In retrospect, officials said they could have done things a little differently to win.

“We didn’t push the campaign as much as we could have,” Frisch said.

Proponents failed to reach those who vote in advance via absentee ballots.

“Had we gotten 60 percent of the absentee ballots, we would have won,” he said. “We should have targeted those people specifically. We should have started earlier in the campaign.”

Another reason for the failure could be a general lack of concern, von Buelow said.

“The majority of people in the valley are not parents,” von Buelow said. “Seventy percent of the registered voters do not have school-age children.”

Frisch also blames part of the failure on ignorance.

Von Buelow said bond measures are tough to pass, regardless.

“There’s a certain percentage of any community that will vote no, no matter what,” he said. “You can tell them everyone will die tomorrow (if the measure doesn’t pass), and they still won’t approve it.”

Larry Tramutola, a consultant who has helped 50 school districts pass bond measures and parcel taxes since 1990, agrees.

“Sometimes it’s the smaller things,” Tramutola said. “It’s not issues the school has anything to do with.”

People have their minds made up about measures before hearing any of the issues, he added.

“You’ll always have the people who will say, we’re so against development we won’t even approve this,” Tramutola said.

And the fallout from the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Belmont fiasco didn’t help locally, even though Hart and the LAUSD are unrelated.

The failure of the bond measure leaves the district looking for ways to house students at campuses well over capacity.

School officials said they may begin looking into alternative funding, including asking the state for hardship funds, a difficult process that comes with string attached.

“If we apply for hardship money it could be years,” Frisch said. “Even if we get the money, they won’t be building the school we were going to build. They will be bare-bones schools.”

At a school board meeting last week, members approved the sales of certificates of partnership that would allow the district to lease a school site to investors.

The method would permit the district to get an immediate $ 20 million, then pay yearly installments to private investors to buy back the lease.

“It’s not an action of choice, it’s an action of necessity,” said Bill Maddigan, the district’s assistant superintendent of business. “We have virtually no choice with our housing situation.”

Frisch said residents will realize how serious school overcrowding is in the Hart district when unpopular schedules are approved to ease the situation.

“The options are being spread very thin now,” he said. “People will begin to notice when they start the multitrack, year-round schools and other alternative scheduling.”

November 29, 1999 | Filed Under News Mentions, School Bond 

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