Officials Consider Bond to Build School at Navy Base : Education: An exact amount for the elementary campus has not been pinpointed. The measure may appear on the ballot next year.
PORT HUENEME — The Hueneme School District may ask voters next year to support a bond measure to finance construction of a new elementary school on the Port Hueneme naval base, officials said this week.
Although school officials have not pinpointed how much they will seek, a new school will cost about $1.5 million, Associate Supt. Jeff Baarstad said.
Other money is needed to renovate the district’s 11 existing schools, which are all at least 30 years old, Baarstad said. A San Francisco consulting firm will canvass property owners next month to gauge support for a bond issue, he said.
If there is sufficient support, the district will very likely place the measure on the June or November ballot in 1996, Baarstad said.
Hueneme school officials have been talking with naval brass for several months about a proposed kindergarten-to-third-grade school at the Naval Construction Battalion Center, he said.
About 500 children whose parents live on the base attend Hueneme schools, he said. They currently attend Bard and Hueneme elementary schools, but it makes more sense for them to attend class closer to their homes, Baarstad said.
Under a current proposal, the Navy would allow the district to lease--at minimal cost--about 1.5 acres on the southeastern portion of the sprawling base as a site for the school, said Bob Wood, director of engineering and planning at the base.
The school district would pledge to build the school and pay for its operation, Wood said. Baarstad said the district very likely will construct the school using portable classrooms to keep costs to a minimum.
“It makes sense for both of us,†Wood said. “We have added 300 units of family housing in the past few years and that has generated a lot of new students.â€
But nothing can be done until the district finds a way to pay for the project. Developer fees--a traditional source of school construction income--are virtually nonexistent because there is no open land for new development in tiny Port Hueneme, he said.
About 11,216 residential and commercial parcels fall within the boundaries of the Hueneme district, he said. The last bonds passed by voters were in the late 1950s and were paid off by 1986, he said.
The average age of Hueneme’s schools is 40 years, Baarstad said. Its oldest, Hueneme School, is 70 years old. All of the campuses need new wiring, plumbing, heating, ventilation, lighting, flooring and windows, he said.
The district’s current maintenance budget is just $200,000 a year. That is barely enough to keep the schools painted and roofed and to fill cracks on the playgrounds, he said.
District leaders are banking that the Port Hueneme community will support the bond because of the district’s sterling reputation as a leader in technology, Baarstad said.
Wood agreed that the bond makes sense.
“We’re both working hard on it,†he said. “They just need the money to do it.â€
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