COMMUNITY COMMENTARY

The bond wagon is coming to our neck of the valley, folks. It’s our turn.

In the Capistrano Valley Unified School District, they rolled out the

welcome mat for it; gave it one of those big grandma hugs. But in Irvine

and Huntington Beach, they chased it from town as if it were some crooked

vagabond peddling bad hair tonic.Now it’s heading our way thanks to the

unanimous courage of the Newport-Mesa Unified board of trustees. On June

7, we’ll either welcome it or ride it out of town on the rail it came in

on.

Here in the land of plenty -- in the bastion of corporate high-rises and

haute couture, in the bread basket of Bertram yachts and ballooning home

values -- having students of Newport-Mesa Unified still heading off to

learn each day at schools in such a state of disrepair is a bewildering

irony. And, altogether, a festering tragedy.

For months now, Newport-Mesa school officials, concerned citizens, and

captains of local industry have combed the district’s elementary, middle

and high school campuses taking stock of the advancing ruin of our

schools. What they’ve found is sobering -- a slap to the face in the dead

of winter. It’s a bleak canvas: buildings with dangerous structural

decay, classrooms that roast their inhabitants during our balmy seasons,

rotting ceiling tiles, brittle wiring, corroded plumbing and playgrounds

strewn with antiquated equipment and crumbling black tops.

Newport-Mesa’s campuses are so tattered and torn, in fact, that it will

require at least $110 million to pull them from the brink of ruin. And

therein lies the acid test.

Now that the Newport-Mesa Unified school board and Supt. Robert Barbot

have made their case for a bond measure to raise most of the coin our

schools’ salvation will require, how will we respond?

My hope is this community will forge a new bond with our kids, will be

willing to drink a few less lattes, take one less ski trip, and part with

roughly $8 a month on average per household. That’s a paltry sum about

the cost of a bag of fertilizer we mindlessly sprinkle on our lawns to

keep them green.The alternative is to claim -- certainly not proudly --

that we are that well-to-do seaside community with inner-city

schools.Still, if it is most obvious to a fair portion of Newport-Mesa

citizens that the passage of the bond measure is a no-brainer, it will

just as likely be the target of those who perpetually grouse about public

institutions of any kind. Here’s what we’re likely to see from the

naysayers.

There will be those in our community -- usually the ones with the most

resources to spare and the least to lose if a bond passes -- who will

fill their quivers with anti-tax, anti-debt, anti-government arrows and

take dead aim at the heart of the bond initiative. These are the folks

who view the public financing of anything as anathema.

Then there’ll be the minions still wounded by the fading specter of the

late Stephen Wagner. We need to remind very few that it was Wagner, the

district’s financial chief in the early ‘90s, who underwrote his tony car

collection, gemstone investments and otherwise lavish lifestyle with $4

million of the district’s money. Wagner’s check-writing party still

infuriates a fair number of folks and nourishes their persistent mistrust

of the district’s overseers. They’ll use this bit of history as a spike

strip to flatten the tires of the bond wagon.

Finally, we’ll be treated to those who don’t give a damn one way or the

other. These will be folks with no kids, who have kids in private school,

or who simply don’t care much about anything so long as it doesn’t

threaten their fixed income.

One hopes these various constituencies will find clarity if not

benevolence. But if they’re not inclined to, I’d hope they would noodle

on these arguments:

* For those who pitch their tent in the anti-tax camp, who are devotees

of Reagan federalism, contemplate for a moment that it was never Reagan’s

intention to purge our democracy of publicly financed institutions. It

should be, he would argue, that public institutions are the citadels of

the local community, not the money-gluttons of state and federal

government. Therefore, the source of their funding should be the local

community. Not the state. Not the Beltway. Who can argue that a local

bond measure is not what Reagan had envisioned?

* As well, it is wrong to continue to punish the children of Newport-Mesa

Unified for the sins of Stephen Wagner, as well as the board members and

administrators who were snoozing while Wagner’s hand was in the jar. In

other words, let it go. Wagner’s dead. And all but a few of the board

members and administrators who were on deck (or below deck) when the

embezzlement unfolded are long gone. By all accounts and observations,

the current Newport-Mesa board and Barbot are clear thinking, dedicated

public servants committed to educating our kids.

* As for the folks who just don’t care, do us a favor. Stay home. Don’t

vote.

This community needs to forge a bond with its children; we need to give

them an environment they can learn in; we need to show them that they are

at least worth the $8 a month we spend to fertilize our lawns.

* BYRON DE ARAKAL is a writer and media consultant in Newport Beach. He

resides in Costa Mesa and has four children who attend Newport-Mesa

schools.