By Clarence Cromwell
With one year left on the parcel tax and facilities in dire need of repair, the Los Gatos Union School District is considering its options.
As they think about whether to ask voters to renew the district's parcel tax next spring, members of a citizen's committee, headed by mayor Joanne Benjamin, will also consider a new bond measure to pay for facility repairs or new construction. And high school officials say they need to pass a bond measure, too.
The $180-per-parcel tax, first approved in 1990, will be due for reconsideration in 1998. It must be reconsidered every four years.
The district asked the committee to determine whether to renew the tax, raise it, eliminate it or add a formula to adjust the tax to inflation.
At the same time, the district wants to know whether it should ask residents to accept further debt to pay for new facilities or repairs to old buildings. To pass a bond will be more difficult than renewing the tax--by about 16 percent.
The 1990 parcel tax measure contained language to allow for renewals by a simple majority; if the district wants to renew the tax without an increase or other changes, a 50 percent-plus vote will suffice. But the new bond will require a two-thirds majority.
Such a majority would appear a cinch, considering that the last bond renewal received support from 80 percent of voters. This time, however, the equation is more complicated. Voters would be asked not only to renew the tax, but to give two-thirds approval to a bond. Add to this the fact that the Los Gatos-Saratoga Joint Union High School District wants to ask for a bond, and voters may feel pressed from all sides.
The citizen's committee is expected to give recommendations to Superintendent Bert Pearlman before the end of May. One option the committee can choose, Pearlman said, is to recommend waiting a year or more and then asking for a bond.
Pearlman said that after hearing from the committee, he'll make a recommendation to the board of trustees, which will probably vote on parcel tax and bond matters sometime before the end of the summer.
The citizen's committee meets 7-9 p.m. each Tuesday in the Daves Avenue School library.
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This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, May 14, 1997.
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