School repair bond fails

Andrew Wainer

They hired the best consultants. They built a powerful coalition. They

spent hundreds of thousands of dollars campaigning.

They lost.

Measure A, the $123-million school repair bond, was defeated Tuesday to

the surprise of all and the dismay of the Huntington Beach Union School

District and its supporters.

The Orange County Registrar of Voters office said Wednesday morning that

the measure had garnered 61.3% of the vote with all precincts counted,

failing to reach the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.

Final results, including absentee ballots, are expected Friday.

Campaigners at pro-bond headquarters in the Huntington Beach office of

Coating Resources Corp., owned by bond supporter Ed Laird, reacted with

stunned disappointment at the news.

“It’s very sad that people don’t care enough about the kids in this

community to pass the bond,” said Tracy Pellman, who has children in the

district’s high schools.

Pellman and others were prepared for victory. A celebration cake

featuring a sugar school with construction workers, multicolored balloons

spread throughout the building, and flowing champagne all served as a

sharp contrast to the sorrowful looks on district officials’ faces when

results were announced around 11 p.m.

“This vote represents old Orange County,” Supt. Susan Roper said. “This

county has a long tradition of antitax sentiment.”

Roper also cited the difficulty of getting the information to voters in

three cities: Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley, as

another reason for the defeat.

But as district officials reacted with shocked frustration, bond

opponents, who had admitted only days earlier that they expected the bond

to pass, also reacted with surprise.

“I don’t know how someone could spend that much money and still lose,”

William Fitzgerald said. “The district wasted thousands of dollars on

that campaign, which could have been spent on repairs.” District

officials said they spent money to distribute information about the vote,

not to actually support it.

District board member Matthew Harper, who also voted against the measure,

said the results “sent a clear message to the district” about voters’

desire to raise property taxes for school repairs.

The days and hours leading up to the vote saw a flurry of activity by

both sides.

Bond supporters started early Tuesday morning, walking precincts and

making calls from campaign headquarters.

Board of Trustees President Bonnie Bruce said she spent the day calling

virtually everyone she knew to go out and vote. Edison High School

Principal Brian Garland added that many of his students were calling

voters after school and urging them to participate in the election. Most

other schools in the district did likewise.

Bond critics also spent the final hours before the election handing out

fliers and making calls urging conservative and libertarian voters to

oppose the bond.

In spite of the defeat, bond supporters said they were proud of their

effort and would consider a future bond election.

“We are sad about the outcome, but we worked extremely hard, and we feel

good about that,” board member Michael Simons said.

And the defeat of the bond is not stopping school officials from seeking

to repair their schools.

The district still expects to receive $37 million in repair funds from

the state this summer. Coupled with $9 million in matching district

funds, schools would receive almost $50 million for modernization

projects.

Indeed, the bond election story could be far from over.

In March an initiative will be presented to California voters proposing

to lower the threshold for school bond elections from two-thirds to a

simple majority to pass.

If the initiative passes, Roper said another bond election would

“definitely be an option.”