Hermosa Beach students won’t be leaving their makeshift classrooms, including portable trailers, teachers’ lounges and administration offices, anytime soon. Measure Q, a $54 million Hermosa school bond measure intended to provide more classroom space, fell roughly 100 votes short of approval. The measure received 2,405 votes, for a 52.9 percent majority, but it required 55 percent approval for passage. Just 36 percent of Hermosa’s 12,372 voters participated in the election
The bond’s failure was the third time in just six years that Hermosa Beach voters have rejected a ballot measure aimed at reducing school overcrowding. Hermosa voters rejected a similar bond measure in 2008 and a parcel tax in 2010.
Measure Q’s proceeds were to be used to reopen North School for 500 students and to modernize the district’s two other schools, Valley and View.
Opponents, led by a group calling itself Restore Hermosa Schools, contended that the district failed to explore all of its options prior to asking for funds to reopen North School.
“I would love to see North School reopened with 250 students. What we’re disputing is the process that led to Measure Q. The school board didn’t evaluate every option,” Marie Rice, a member of Restore Hermosa Schools said prior to the election.
Following the election, Restore Hermosa’s Schools issued a statement, which said in part, “We look forward to collaborating with the school board and all Hermosa residents to work on bond measure based on a thorough evaluation of all facilities options, with a specified plan and priorities clearly defined”.
Superintendent Pat Escalante noted, before the election, that the district held over 40 facilities planning meetings and school board meetings to study how to address the overcrowding issue.
Hermosa currently has 1,429 students at its two schools, Valley and View. Over one-third of the students, 504, are in temporary classrooms, Escalante said.
The district’s Long Range Facilities Master plan, adopted last summer, included an option anticipating Measure Q’s failure.
The option proposes relieving overcrowding at Valley by moving its seven third grade classes to View. To accommodate the approximately 138 new students, View would get seven additional portable classrooms and a portable restroom.
The board is scheduled to discuss the district’s response to Measure Q’s failure at its 7 p.m. meeting next Wednesday.
Hermosa’s school property tax is presently $17.97, the lowest of the 11 South Bay School Districts and the second lowest among Los Angeles County’s 74 districts. The current tax assessment is from the $14 million, Proposition J school bond passed in 2002. It will expire in 2031.
The $54 million bond would have increased property taxes by $29.50/$100,000 in assessed valuation, for a combined assessment of $49.97.
By contrast, Manhattan’s school property tax is $70.75 and Redondo’s $92.42.
