SUPPORT FOR SCHOOL BOND TO BE MEASURED WESTSIDE DISTRICT WANTS HELP TO BUILD SIX CAMPUSES.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - The Westside Union School District will spend about $12,000 to hire a consultant to gauge residents' support for a proposed school construction bond measure.

Westside officials are thinking of placing a bond on the June 6 ballot to help pay for building six schools within the next decade.

``We want to find a sense of whether we have a chance to pass that or not. A survey would best indicate what the community's opinion of a bond would be,'' Superintendent Regina Rossall said. ``We don't want to go out for a bond and not be successful.''

The board last week approved hiring Emeryville-based consulting firm Caldwell Flores Winters to conduct the survey at a cost not to exceed $12,000.

The firm will poll 400 to 500 registered voters by telephone.

Trustees must decide by early March to be able to place the bond on the ballot for the June election.

District officials are considering trying to pass the bond measure under Proposition 39, which would require approval by 55 percent, rather than two-thirds, of the voters and would cap taxes at $30 per $100,000 assessed valuation.

Depending on how fast the assessed valuation in the Westside district grows, the bond amount could range anywhere from $42 million to $60 million, Rossall said.

``What they do is they ask pertinent questions of people regarding their support or nonsupport of another general obligation bond for construction,'' trustee Gwen Farrell said. ``It's also to see what kind of bond they would go for, two-thirds or 55 percent.''

The assessments are not capped under a bond passed with two-thirds approval.

Westside district voters in June 1989 narrowly approved an $8.5 million bond measure, passed with 23 votes more than the minimum two-thirds then necessary.

In 1998, district voters approved extending the school construction tax to 2026 to raise $14.7 million.

The current bond tax started at $30 per $100,000 assessed value but has since dropped to about $18 because there are more homes and higher average values, district officials said.

The total residential and commercial assessed valuation in the district is about $5 billion.

To finance school construction, Westside has been forming special tax districts, which allow developers to pass on to homeowners school-building fees rather than pay them before houses are built.

Officials are projecting that the district will need a middle school and several elementary schools in the 7,200-home Ritter Ranch master-planned community.

Two schools would be needed for the planned 1,900-home Del Sur Ranch development near 90th Street West and Avenue H. Del Sur School, a kindergarten to eighth-grade school, would be converted to a middle school.

And more elementary classrooms are needed around Sundown School near 60th Street West and Avenue J-8, and for the Anaverde master-planned development in southwest Palmdale.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com