Oxnard Bond Victory Makes for a Clean Sweep

With barely 100 votes to spare, a bond measure buying the Oxnard Elementary School District $57 million in school construction and improvements won support from the community, school officials learned Wednesday.

“I feel like I just got a ton off my back,” said Oxnard campaign coordinator Armando Lopez, who also worked on an unsuccessful campaign for the bond money in March. “It’s been a long six months. A very long six months. . . . Our volunteers worked very hard. They pulled this off.”

While Oxnard officials absorbed the news of their hard-won victory, Ventura Unified and Ocean View school districts began plotting how to use the multimillion dollar borrowing packages voters approved for them in Tuesday’s special election.

Ventura officials say their $81-million measure, the largest ever approved in Ventura County, will ensure completion of a new elementary school and allow them to start planning for a third high school.

“The elementary school in the east end, that is a fait accompli,” Supt. Joseph Spirito said. “Now we need to look at the magnet high school, class-size reduction and modernization for the kids. Those are kind of the front-burner items.”

District officials are visiting Buena and Ventura high schools to figure out how much support there is among students for a magnet high school.

The school could open as early as this fall in temporary quarters at Ventura College, he said.

Planners are also considering whether to go ahead with their plans to consolidate Oak View and Arnaz elementary schools, two of the campuses with the lowest enrollment.

The superintendent’s office expects to meet with school trustees early next week to discuss priorities for the bond money.

By the year 2010, the district plans to spend $120 million to build at least two elementary schools, a middle school and magnet high school. The bond money should finance the bulk of the construction projects, as well as improvements to aging schools.

Even before the election, the district hired architects to draft plans for a new elementary school that would ease crowding at east Ventura campuses. The bond measure won with 74.8% of the 15,187 votes cast.

“We’re feeling good here,” Spirito said. “I tell you 75%, that’s an overwhelming support for the bond. That’s the first time anything happened like this in Ventura.” The last and only time Ventura Unified went for a bond was 1969, and that failed to garner voter approval.

For Oxnard, the bond measure’s passage means the elementary school district will have money to build at least two schools, improve technology and renovate campuses.

Officials there spent most of Wednesday waiting for word on whether the measure had gained the two-thirds majority required for passage.

The initiative had a 40-vote margin of victory Tuesday night, but about 300 absentee and provisional ballots remained to be counted. The March campaign for the $57-million bond package failed by about 80 votes.

When the votes were counted Wednesday afternoon, the bond measure had won 68% of the 7,407 votes cast--or about 100 votes more than needed for victory.

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The Ocean View School District, stretching from south Oxnard to the Los Angeles County line, also won approval for its $4-million measure to pay for campus and technology improvements, and for at least 30 new portable classrooms.

The district, which hasn’t gone for a bond since 1963, plans to meet with architects next week to begin drafting a master plan of school projects.

“We’re still kind of on an adrenaline rush, still on that cloud nine,” said Associate Supt. Jeff Chancer. “A lot of work has been accomplished, but there’s a lot to be done, and now we have to prioritize.

High on their priority list, so far, is a plan to repair the ground water well at Laguna Vista School. The well, built more than 30 years ago, needs a new holding tank, chlorinator and pump.

“The whole system is above ground and is antiquated,” Chancer said. “It needs to be changed.” The repairs will cost an estimated $150,000

District official said they will also make class-size reduction a priority. Prior to the bond, they began ordering three portable classrooms, which will arrive Tuesday, to reduce class sizes to 20 students or fewer in the lower elementary grades. They plan to use their bond money to purchase at least 30 portables for $1.6 million to $2 million.

In a phone interview, state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin congratulated the three school districts on their victory sweep during Tuesday’s election and encouraged other communities to follow Ventura County’s example of making schools a high priority.

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“We’re pleased Ventura, Oxnard and Ocean View will help our kids,” Eastin said Wednesday. “Children are young but they’re not saps.

“When we tell them our schools are important they really want to believe us, but if they walk to the front door and there are buckets on the floor, busted furniture, no computers and cloudy windows 50 years old, they don’t think schools are important. So we hope more communities will join with your community down in Ventura County.”