DISTRICT MUST DECIDE FUTURE OF BOND BID.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Daily News Staff Writer

Still undecided about whether to pursue a third school bond, the Conejo Valley school district has until 5 p.m. Wednesday to work out the details of the measure and get the final draft to Ventura County elections office.

The district will have to meet the county's strict June 24 deadline to submit a new bond measure - with an estimated tax rate and the exact wording for the ballot, said Bruce Bradley, assistant registrar of voters.

In the two months since the district's second attempt to pass a $97 million bond failed to muster the required 66 percent vote, school officials have been scrambling to keep up morale among supporters - while also aggressively courting residents who staunchly opposed the prior measures.

``The school district wants us to support another bond and I think many of us agree that we do need to clean up our school sites,'' said Tommi Denney, a district mom who opposed the April bond. ``The thing is they have to re-evaluate a lot of the projects on their list and make that bond more reasonable.''

Denney was among a handful of local residents known for their vocal opposition to the last two bonds that were invited to meet with district officials to discuss how to make the bond more appealing.

``We have had a lot of meetings recently to get any ideas we could before proposing another bond measure. Some people were immediately supportive, others wanted to see the amount of the bond decrease. And we'll roll all of that input into the different options we present to the board Tuesday,'' said Gary Mortimer, assistant superintendent of business services.

Placing the bond on the November ballot would cost the district $7,000 in addition to the $6,300 it already has to pay for its board election. In April, the district spent $87,000 to hold a special election. Last November, it paid $57,500.

For many Thousand Oaks residents, the district's persistence does not come as a surprise. Trustees and school officials alike said leaving the schools in the state they are in would be irresponsible.

``I think the district's original list of projects that needed to get done and that needed funding was realistic. Eventually, all those projects will have to get done,'' said Pat Phelps, past-PTA president at Westlake High School.

``Maybe now the right thing to do is to alter the amount of the bond, but really we can't afford to cut most of those projects out,'' she said.

For Denney, a more reasonable figure would be $44 million - a figure she worked out after reviewing the district's $101 million list of projects it used to market its last bond.

``More than 30 percent of that list was for maintenance work that should have been done long ago. But I know that we have to clean up our school sites and that the only way we can do that now is bond money,'' she said.

But other pricier projects - including relocating the district's maintenance office and continuation high school and setting aside funds for the Dos Vientos school which has not yet been planned or built - should be dropped from the list, she said.