SANTA PAULA : Bond Issue to Repair High School Passes

Santa Paula school officials said they were elated Wednesday because voters passed a bond measure that will provide $5 million to renovate the city’s only public high school.

Measure A, which needed two-thirds of the vote to pass, was approved by 3,212 votes or 79.2% of the 4,057 votes cast.

The money will be used to remove asbestos and repair Santa Paula Union High School’s peeling paint, drooping ceiling tiles, cracked walls and inadequate lighting and plumbing.

“The high percentage that voted for the bond issue is a real validation of the community’s commitment to our high school instruction program,” said Caroline Erie, superintendent of the high school district. “It was a districtwide commitment to get the measure passed and the community responded tremendously.”

The school, parts of which date back to the 1930s, fell into disrepair over the last five years because the district was short of funds.

In a 1988 inspection, fire officials found 217 hazards at the school, 41 of which were serious.

Many of the violations were corrected within six months, but some hazards remained because the district could not afford to fix them, officials said.

Under Measure A, Santa Paula homeowners will pay extra property taxes of $30 per $100,000 in assessed valuation over the next 25 years to finance renovation of the 41-acre campus.

An initial $3 million in bonds will be issued in July, district officials said.

Edwin Beach, a retired judge who served on a committee of parents, alumni and residents who joined to promote the bond issue, said that although the money “won’t solve all of the schools problems, it will certainly solve and cure a lot of the present building deficiencies.”