A narrow victory for Measure F

This week we asked our parent panelists, why was the vote on the $282-million school bond measure last week so close?

People said no because taxpayers wanted more details about where their money would go.

With Measure A, an all-out effort was made to help taxpayers understand how each school would be upgraded.

Not so with Measure F. This bond was on a fast track -- no one had time to evaluate the trustees’ new approach to doling out the money. Even county treasurer John Moorlach didn’t release his B grade until right before the election.

Remember, in 2000 the district still had an image problem because of the embezzlement and county bankruptcy. It behooved trustees to inform taxpayers. Better to err on the side of caution than rush the bond and have it fail. It was a wise strategy, respectful of all taxpayers’ pocketbooks. Moorlach gave it an A stamp, which reassured voters of the bond’s integrity. As a result, Measure A passed with 72% approval.

This time, trustees had no pre-campaign strategy because they knew they needed only 55% to win. Why run a time-consuming, expensive public-relations campaign to explain the new bond? There might have been too many questions to answer about Measure A’s construction if community forums were held. People might have objected to proposed projects.

Also, trustees chose to generalize the lists of repairs to keep parents in the four zones from comparing their lists and complaining about inequities. Yet rumor has it people complained anyway. After the bond passed, trustees said, prioritizing would happen in “equity” committees. Final approval of improvements would come from a new citizens oversight committee.

All the trustees needed to do to was find enough yes votes. Volunteers worked zealously right up until the poles closed to make sure these folks voted.

At first I supported Measure F, but then I changed my mind. The campaign was too rushed. Haste makes waste. Voters expected and deserved the same respect from trustees they got with Measure A. Trustees got their wish, but because they chose not to do their laborious, boring homework first and explain the details to concerned taxpayers, I predict things will not go as smoothly in the years to come as they did with Measure A.

* WENDY LEECE is a Costa Mesa parent, former school board member and member of the city’s parks and recreation commission.

There are probably two primary and related reasons for Measure F passing by a thin margin.

First, it’s always hard to vote to tax yourself.

Second, it’s even harder to vote to tax yourself if you’re not completely confident that the new tax dollars will be wellmanaged and well-spent and deliver value. The way Measure F is written provides valid reasons to be concerned about how those dollars we borrowed will be spent.

Most people with kids in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District schools probably voted for the bond.

It’s easy to see when you’re in the schools that there’s still a lot of work to be done, and it’s almost a no-brainer to agree to spend a few bucks extra per year for the next 40 years or so.

People without kids in the schools could obviously have voted in favor simply because they also believe that kids in the community need the best we can provide and that the long-term investment will be worth it by having a better educated generation of Californians to lead us forward.

Or they could just like high property values, which good schools drive better than almost anything other than a beachfront location.

The passage of Measure F and similar infrastructure measures in the state does indicate that people are willing to pay a little more for things that they know we need.

Things like schools, roads, levees and bridges just need to be paid for, and on a local level, people see those things and are willing to invest.

Nobody likes taxes, but most people ultimately understand that there’s still no free lunch. There are plenty of inefficiencies in governments, but even if every last penny of bureaucratic waste were eliminated, there wouldn’t be enough to cover the work that really needs to get done.

Local voters get it.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets it a little better after getting his head handed to him in the election, and he’s now proposing a $50-billion spending program for fixing everything. I was hoping that he and the legislature might actually start doing some governing and legislating in the month or two before the next election campaign begins.

However, the governor has positioned the $50 billion as a bond, so it’s seems that he’s not quite ready to actually admit that bond commitments get repaid with something called taxes, but it’s a start.

* MARK GLEASON is a Costa Mesa resident and parent.

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