Beach 2016: Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach pass school bonds
Students rally in support of Measure S in front of Hermosa View School. Photo courtesy Michael Collins
Two local districts passed school facilities bonds in 2016. In Manhattan Beach, voters approved measures C and EE, which will provide more than $150 million to improve school safety and upgrade the deteriorating Fisher Gym at Mira Costa High School; both measures cruised to victory, each garnering at least two-thirds of ballots. And Hermosa Beach voters overcame a historic hesitancy toward school bonds by approving Measure S in June, setting the stage for the opening of a third campus in the city to relieve the overcrowding that has plagued the district in recent years.
Hermosa’s bond imposes an increase of $29.50 per $100,000 of assessed value on property taxes, bringing the city’s school bond assessment rate to $47.47. Manhattan’s bond will also raise property taxes by about $30 per $100,000 of assessed value. Under the resulting rates, Hermosa’s assessment level will remain lower than neighboring districts in Manhattan and Redondo Beach, each of which offers a high school that Hermosa students can choose to attend after completing 8th grade. Manhattan’s rate will remain lower the Redondo’s.
Hermosa’s tax increase, the far more closely contested of the two, is expected to net about $59 million for the Hermosa Beach City School District. Some of the money will go to refurbishing and renovating the district’s existing schools, but the lion’s share will go toward reopening North School, a district-owned parcel near Valley Park. The property previously served as a district campus, but was shuttered in the 1980s amid declining enrollment, and currently is home to preschool programs.
In the run-up to the vote, community members and educators stressed that Hermosa’s existing schools, Hermosa View and Hermosa Valley, were simply too crowded and that another campus was needed. The two campuses were built to house about 1,000 students; at the time of the vote, enrollment stood at 1,432 pupils.
The “purple monster” and “pink bear” celebrate at a post-election party. Photo
As the 2015/16 school year dawned, the space crunch forced students into trailers, compromised instrument-storage space for the school’s music program, compelled administrators to repurpose a teacher’s lounge as classroom, and limited blacktop space for kids to play on.
“Before I came to this meeting, I asked my three kids what they would want to see in a new school, and they all said ‘A place to run,’” said parent Regina Harrison at a district envisioning meeting at the beginning of the year. “I’m not sure where that could go right now. Maybe you could put it on top of a building.”
The facilities crunch existed in part because a similar school bond failed at the ballot less than two years before. In November 2014, voters rejected Measure Q, which also would have reopened North School, by 32 votes. With the sting of this defeat still fresh in mind, a trio of Hermosa mothers — Christine Shultz, Christine Tasto and Heather Baboolal — applied the lessons of the No on O campaign from the 2015 oil drilling election to the school bond issue, creating a disciplined support structure.
Manhattan voters had in recent years been more willing to support school bonds at the polls. But bond backers and school board members there said the previous measures had addressed classrooms and technology, while bigger safety measures like earthquake retrofitting were passed by. Also neglected over the years was the high school’s gym, the condition of which surprised many of the parents involved in the campaign.
“I myself was shocked…You just can’t believe the state it’s in. It’s just not okay. It’s not acceptable,” said Leasa Ireland, communications director for the two bond campaigns, describing her reaction to a tour of Fisher Gym.
Manhattan Beach School Board President Ellen Rosenberg and Vice President Jennifer Cochran celebrate the passage of school bonds measures C and EE. Photo .
The bonds cruised to victory in November. Measure C collected 71.44 percent of the vote, while EE garnered 67.38 percent, according to figures from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.
Opposition to the bonds was far more vocal in Hermosa than in Manhattan. As the campaign over the measure developed, opponents of Measure S stressed that they were not opposed to education, and acknowledged the overcrowding in the district. But they stressed that there were other potential solutions, and argued that the district had done inadequate preparation to justify the money the projects required. They made arguments about the historic character of North School, the availability of the former Pier Avenue Junior High (now the city’s Community Center) as an alternative, and the challenges of traffic and parking that North’s location imposed.
“They say it used to be 300 [students], it’s 300 now, and it will be 300 when it opens. But these other 300 aren’t all coming at 8 [a.m.] and leaving at 3:30 [p.m.],” said resident Blair Smith, whose 25th Street home sits across from North School’s entrance.
The district produced reports addressing all of these issues, but they did little to satisfy Measure S opponents, who contended that the fact that the district paid for the reports made them less reliable. The race remained heated all the way up until the June 7 election, with yard signs popping up in roughly equal proportion all over town. The measure’s supporters increasingly invoked the specter of declining property values that would ensue from ongoing overcrowding.
“People think, ‘Oh, my kids already went through the schools, it’s not my problem.’ But down the line, if you try to sell your house, it will be your problem,” said then-Mayor Carolyn Petty when the City Council unanimously endorsed the bond measure.
Measure S collected 4,040 votes in favor to 2,725 opposed. The 59.72 percent share in favor was enough to push the measure over the 55 percent requirement state law imposes for the approval of school facilities bonds.
Once the election results were certified, it fell to the school board to select an architect and builder for North School. After an extensive vetting process and series of interviews, the board ultimately chose SVA as the architect, and Bernards as builder. Both firms have experience in local school construction: SVA served as architect for the remodel of Redondo Union High School, and Bernards was the builder for Mira Costa’s renovated math and science building.
Just as important as a local portfolio, however, was the firms’ commitment to sustainability. Board members hope for the new school to use as little energy as possible, cheering local environmentalists.
“It set the pace for so many things to come. This board understood how that one building will help set the future of Hermosa,” said resident Robert Fortunato.