$25 MILLION BOND SLIDES IN 25-VOTE MARGIN CLEARS WAY FOR 2 SCHOOLS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Two schools will be built after county election officials declared officially Monday that the Palmdale School District's $25 million construction bond measure passed by 25 votes.

District officials said construction will start in March or April on Golden Poppy School - at 62nd Street East and Avenue R-4. Construction is expected to begin in the summer on a school at Ana Verde Plaza at Division Street and Rayburn Road. Both schools will serve students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

``We are extremely happy to start construction on the schools in a few months,'' said Superintendent Nancy Smith, noting it will prevent changing to double sessions. ``I also think it will be so much better for the kids and for morale to be able to stick to the current calendar instead of changing.''

Measure W on election night Nov. 6 had garnered 54.8 percent of the votes, apparently falling short of the 55 percent needed to pass by 32 votes.

But votes for the measure pulled further ahead of no votes in the subsequent counting of hundreds of absentee and provisional ballots, and the yes tally reached 3,848 votes, 55.2 percent of the total.

The measure will cost homeowners an average of $30 a year over a 30-year period.

Each school, designed to hold 1,500 students, will take 15 to 18 months to build, Smith said, and both will cost $18 million.

Golden Poppy is being built first because the district population is growing faster in that area, and the project is first in line to receive $9.3 million in matching funds from the state, Smith said.

``In priority points, that's the first one that will come up. We have enough points to get matching funds,'' Smith said.

If the Ana Verde project does not have enough points for matching funds, the district will borrow money on a short-term basis and pay it back when state funds become available, Smith said.

After two previous attempts failed to get voter approval for construction bonds, Smith said Measure W's passage was like a dream come true.

``We can't believe it really came through. We kept waiting for somebody to call and say it was a mistake,'' Smith said.

A majority of voters said yes to $81 million in bonds in 1996 and 1997, but the measure fell short of getting the two-thirds approval then required. In the 1996 election, the district got 63.7 percent of the vote, and in 1997, secured 54.5 percent of the vote.

Measure W needed only 55 percent under a state proposition approved last year.

While absentee ballots turned in earlier were counted on election day, the counting continued later for those dropped off at polling places or received in the mail at the Registrar's Office on election day.

The provisional ballots were cast by voters whose names were not on their precinct roster. Officials later verified the voter registration before counting each provisional ballot.