ELECTIONS / CAMARILLO : $75-Million School Bond Measure G Is Defeated

Voters in Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Elementary School District defeated a bond measure Tuesday that would have provided $75 million to renovate the district’s aging, overcrowded schools and build new ones.

Measure G, which required a two-thirds vote to pass, was turned down by a vote of 4,969, or 60%, to 3,318, or 40%, election officials said. Voter turnout in the election, the only one in Ventura County on Tuesday, was 25.6%.

If the measure had passed, homeowners would have been assessed $35 a year per $100,000 of the assessed value of their homes for 20 years.

Measure G was the largest school bond measure in the county’s history.

The school district, which includes the city of Camarillo as well as unincorporated county areas, extends east into the Santa Rosa Valley to Moorpark Road. It has 32,423 registered voters, county elections officials said.

The two biggest problems facing the 6,500-student district, officials say, are overcrowding and keeping aging buildings fixed up.

Over the next 18 years, the district will expand by 3,600 students, or more than 50%, a district study projects.

Officials at Las Colinas Elementary School are already grappling with overcrowding. To decrease an overflow population this school year, 220 seventh- and eighth-grade students were bused from Las Colinas to Monte Vista Intermediate School.

By next school year, officials project, Las Colinas will again enroll more than its 1,032-student capacity.

And Santa Rosa Elementary School, which has been growing by about 70 students a year for the last three years, will reach its capacity next year, despite the recent addition of new classrooms, officials said.

The district’s older schools--Las Posas, Los Primeros, Camarillo Heights and Santa Rosa elementary schools--are among those most in need of renovation. The repairs include asbestos removal, plumbing replacement, retiling leaky roofs and rewiring electrical systems to accommodate computers.

District officials estimate that about $75 million is needed to implement a district master plan covering the next 20 to 25 years. Of that sum, about $43 million is needed to build three new elementary schools and an intermediate school, and about $23 million is required to renovate existing schools.

District officials acknowledged that $75 million was a large sum but decided to ask for the entire amount needed to implement the master plan, Assistant Supt. Howard Hamilton said.

“We thought of piecemealing it but decided that spelling out what our needs are over the long term was the best way to go,” he said.

Camarillo is the county’s oldest city, and district officials said they sought support not only from voters with children in the district’s schools but from other residents as well, including older and single residents.

Leisure Village, a residential complex for senior citizens at the city’s eastern edge, represented an important voting bloc.

“It’s an uphill battle to get two-thirds support on any issue, especially finances, and especially at this time, when we’re in a recession,” Hamilton said.

Some parents joined school officials in campaigning for Measure G. Karen Normington, president of the Monte Vista Intermediate School PTA, said parents telephoned voters and walked door-to-door in the city’s neighborhoods in an effort to build support for the measure.

Many parents joined school officials at an election night party at Monte Vista to monitor the returns.