Poway school bond appears headed for victory

By: SHAYNA CHABNER - Staff Writer | Wednesday, February 6, 2008 12:14 PM PST ∞

POWAY ---- Voters in the Poway Unified School district appear to have signed off on a $179 million school bond.

With all of the 104 precincts counted Wednesday morning, unofficial results from the county registrar's office showed 63.7 percent of voters supported the measure, Proposition C. The bond, which is the second school bond measure the district has placed before voters in six years, needed at least 55 percent of the vote to pass.

The county registrar said that there are still about 160,000 absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted.

"We are absolutely thrilled with what this will mean for our students," Lorene Joosten, co-chairwoman of the "Friends of Poway Unified School ---- Yes on C" said Wednesday morning.

"We had been getting a good feeling all the way along ... but we didn't want to get overconfident. We were definitely very hopeful."

Joosten, district officials, school board members and dozens of volunteers gather at a volunteer's home in Poway to watch the results come in Tuesday evening. The early lead, with absentee ballots showing that as many as 65.4 percent of voters supported the measure just after 8 p.m. Tuesday, eased many supporters nerves, she said.

"Typically the most conservative voters are absentee," committee bond consultant Charles Heath said. "If we are doing that well on the absentees, we are doing great."

Opponents of the measure, who jump-started their campaign in the last month, said Wednesday that while they were disappointed with results, they were pleased with the number of people who volunteered to fight the proposition.

"The community did step forward and tried to defeat it this time," said Melinda Converse, chairwoman of the "It is a New Tax ---- Vote No on Prop. C" committee. "I have to feel good about that."

Converse, who also led grass-roots campaigns against the district's last successful bond ---- the $198 million Proposition U in 2002 ---- and the two unsuccessful measures before it, said she received more support from the public than ever this time around.

Prop. C will raise the funds district officials have said they need to complete a 24-school modernization and building project that Poway Unified began in 2002 when voters passed Prop. U. Bond funds will also pay for technology and campus security upgrades, resources for libraries and science laboratories, and improved disability access.

Funds from the original 2002 construction bond ran out before the district finished all the work because of an unprecedented escalation in the cost of building materials, competition for contractors faced with a housing boom and Hurricane Katrina, and unexpected repairs at nearly a dozen campuses, said Doug Mann, the district's executive director of facilities.

The bond will be paid off by property owners, who will not see their annual tax rate increase but will continue to pay the current rate of $55 per $100,000 of assessed value on homes for an additional 11 to 14 years.

With the new bonds, which are to be sold in five separate issuances between 2008 and 2019, the property tax tab will not be paid off until 2044.

Only residents within Poway Unified's boundaries who do not pay Mello-Roos taxes ---- charges similar to homeowner association fees ---- were allowed to vote on the measure and will be subject to the extension.

Contact staff writer Shayna Chabner at (760) 740-5416 or schabner@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

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