School board gives parcel tax no chance
'Not in this town,' Beaubien says
By Joann Groff  joann@theacorn.com

After many Meadows and University parents left school closure meetings with the hope that a parcel tax could keep the elementary schools open, the school board all but shot down the idea in a discussion on the matter last week.

Conejo Valley Unified School District board members Dorothy Beaubien, Dolores Didio and Pat Phelps agreed there was no chance that Thousand Oaks residents would vote for a $60 parcel tax, an amount that would give the district about $2.5 million.

"If you want my opinion on the parcel tax, I say forget it," Didio said.

Beaubien agreed.

"Not in this town," she said. "We are all interested in schools here. We are school people. We all think everyone else should care about the schools, too."

Dep. Superintendent Jeff Baarstad said $2.5 million would allow for $1.3 million to offset declining enrollment and keep the two schools open. The remaining $1.2 million would be earmarked for technology advances.

"I was disappointed," Baarstad said when he realized the tax would have to be so high. "And that leads me to the chances of passage. Five years ago there was a public opinion research survey done. They surveyed 400 likely registered voters on whether they'd support a parcel tax, at what levels and at what dollar amount. Our support eroded at about $25.

"The only thing that resonated with voters was class size. Support services and jobs didn't."

The parcel tax would pass with two-thirds of the vote. First, however, the majority of the school board would have to vote for a resolution supporting the tax 90 days before the election. And after this first discussion, it didn't look like getting that majority was a possibility.

"I don't think the community would support it," Phelps said.

Baarstad said they could go forward with getting the tax on the ballot on "blind faith," spend $20,000 on a survey or take it off the table.

Board member Mike Dunn pushed for the survey.

"I think we should take a chance," Dunn said. "I believe the people were led to believe that a parcel tax or a sales tax could save their schools. We owe it to those people who just were told their schools are closing. We might be able to keep those schools open and save those jobs."

Superintendent Mario Contini agreed, although he does not get a vote.

"At what point have we done our due diligence?" Contini said. "At what point do we feel we have exhausted all other options of looking for revenue generation? We up here probably have a pretty good hunch that it won't be supported. . . . The only way we will know if there's been a change in public opinion is if we conduct a survey. If it says it's not going to fly, we've thrown away $20,000 in a difficult time, but the only way we'll know for sure is if we do a survey."

Didio again disagreed.

"You said it," she told Contini. "We'd be throwing away $20,000. I can give you the answer to the survey right now. It's not going to pass.

"I think I know this community pretty well, and they aren't going to think it's any of their problem. It's our problem."

Board member Tim Stephens didn't give an opinion but did support Baarstad bringing back more information on a possible survey.

As far as the other option, a sales tax override, Baarstad said information he'd received from the city indicated it would take two to three years to get it going. The tax would benefit the city of Thousand Oaks, Conejo Recreation and Park District, and CVUSD.

"As far as a sales tax is concerned, we aren't going to get the city people out there, and, frankly, I don't know that the parks and rec people have the constituents," Didio said. "It would be us out there working to get a tax for three agencies. I really don't see putting forth all that effort."

A parcel tax is a fixed amount of money per parcel and is not based on property value. There are 44,498 parcels within the boundaries of CVUSD.