Measure E passes with 72 percent of votes

By Jeff Kearns

Foothill-De Anza College District's $248 million bond measure passed handily Tuesday, easily exceeding the two-thirds vote needed. The measure won with an even 72 percent of the votes--34,549 to 13,423.

District officials, who spent the last two years carefully pushing Measure E, were elated by the victory, which is the district's first successful bond measure since 1972. Voters defeated a similar bond measure placed on the ballot in 1984.

"We're pretty psyched up, actually," FHDA board president Dolly Sandoval said as the first election results started to come in, indicating that support for the measure would squeak by the two-thirds benchmark needed to pass.

Campaign volunteers worked the phones almost until the polls closed.

The measure was decided by voters in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Stanford and parts of San Jose.

Money from the bond measure will help renovate, refurbish and repair classroom space and campus facilities and will cover basic needs like plumbing and roofing. It will also bring the schools up to date with new science labs and high-tech classrooms.

"We're talking about classrooms that were built before every home had a computer, and when schools had one computer that took up a whole room," Sandoval said.

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