BOND ISSUE SET AT $91 MILLION; A.V. PROPOSAL WOULD FUND HIGH SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION.

Byline: John Sanders Staff Writer

Antelope Valley voters will be asked in November to approve a $91 million high school-construction bond measure that would add about $25 a year in property taxes to a $100,000 home, Antelope Valley Union High School District officials said Wednesday.

If passed, the bond would finance construction of two high schools, a third smaller high school, a continuation high school and three alternative schools, plus renovate and modernize Palmdale, Quartz Hill and Antelope Valley high schools, the three oldest campuses.

``It is critical. The kids really deserve this,'' high school trustee Bill Olenick said of the bond. ``There is a critical need for facilities. We need them now. Our kids are worth it.''

The high school board had voted unanimously last week to put a bond measure on the Nov. 2 ballot, but they delayed deciding its dollar amount.

In a 45-minute meeting Tuesday night, the board voted 4-0 to peg the bond at $91 million, which Olenick said works out to about $25 per year in additional taxes on a house assessed at $100,000.

Trustee Kevin Carney was absent while attending a conference in Washington D.C. However, Olenick said that he spoke with Carney about an hour before the meeting, and he said that Carney was in favor of the bond.

According to Olenick, the district has three major immediate needs.

It first wants to build a high school, to be named Mountain View, on Avenue S in east Palmdale to ease crowding at Palmdale High School and Highland High School.

The district also wants to modernize its three oldest existing high schools, and to build an additional continuation school at 6th Street East and Avenue Q in Palmdale.

A smaller high school focused on college prep and technology would be built on Rancho Vista Boulevard in west Palmdale, and another high school at 35th Street East and Avenue J-8 in east Lancaster, officials said.

The district also wants to build three more community day schools, one on Avenue S in Palmdale and the other two at undecided locations.

Other uses of the money could include adding science laboratories for the district's three newest high schools - Lancaster, Littlerock and Highland.

The district also owns land in Leona Valley.

School bond measures - which require two-thirds of the vote to pass - have received uneven reception in recent years in the Antelope Valley. Lancaster voters last March approved a $29 million bond measure after earlier efforts failed in 1989 and 1990. In Palmdale, an $81 million bond measure failed in 1996 and 1997. Eastside Union School District voters approved a $15.5 million bond measure in 1997.

``I believe that once the community learns of the needs and is educated to the situation of the high school district, we are going to have a bond that is going to be passed in November, overwhelmingly,'' Olenick said. ``We owe our kids an appropriate education and an environment that's conducive to learning.''