Politics & Government

School Board Learns Lessons About Bond Measure Failure

Measure O mainly failed at the polls because not enough parents voted and it was an off-year election, a polling firm told the board.

Measure O, the San Bruno Park School District’s $40 million bond measure, mainly failed in the November election because parents didn’t vote and the bond was pushed in a non-presidential election year, the school board learned Wednesday.

Pollster Dale Scott gave a presentation about the election to the board at its meeting, held at Portola Elementary, and spelled out what his firm determined were several factors that led to the .

Most notably, he said, residents 55 and older accounted for nearly two-thirds of the voters in San Bruno for the election. Those voters tend to be more conservative when it comes to raising taxes, Scott said.

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The biggest factor was simply bad timing. While about 80 percent of San Bruno voters turned out for the 2008 presidential election, according to research by Scott’s firm, historically only about a quarter of those people show up to the polls in election years where neither a president nor governor is being elected.

“The opposition tends to get a much louder voice,” Scott said. “That’s what happened to undecided voters here.” Scott added that the opposition to Measure O likely swayed many of the undecided voters who showed up to the polls on Election Day because it was the only local measure on the ballot.

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Also, he added, the four precincts that showed the most support for the bond measure—near Belle Air, Allen, El Crystal and Rollingwood schools—had the lowest turnout among all voters.

Parent Joan Skinner had another theory for why Measure O failed.

She said she heard from many parents that they didn’t agree with the fact that most of the came from companies in or connected to the building industry that would likely benefit from the construction contracts if the bond measure passed. In total, the campaign raised more than $37,000, which was mostly spent on mailers and phone banking efforts.

“What it became was a situation where it appeared to residents that a lot of money was being put forth by individuals who were not part of the community in an effort to ramrod the measure down the throats of the citizens in this town,” Skinner said. “It was set up in a way that it wouldn’t succeed.”

Skinner suggested that if the school district decided to pursue another bond measure, it should consider forgoing contributions from non-local companies and figuring out what exactly people want for the schools.

As a next step, Scott recommended that the district put the bond measure or something similar on the November ballot, when the next presidential election would occur.

In other discussion, the school board began a talk about equity in school fundraising at the request of trustee Jennifer Blanco.

Blanco pointed to a recent decision by the Albany Unified School District to require money raised at any one of the Albany’s three elementary schools to be shared equally. Two of Albany’s elementary schools are more affluent and get more parental support while the other school has struggled to get any outside support.

Blanco suggested the school board explore whether a similar model might work for the school district’s eight schools.

Some agreed that the school board should take a serious look at how each school is funded. However, others cautioned that the Albany model has already experienced pitfalls and a similar effort in San Bruno might not work.

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