By LESTER CHANG
In 1992, the Sunnyvale School District failed to muster enough voter support for a $30 million bond to repair its nine schools, foiling efforts to update obsolete facilities.
In 1996, the district is banking on a high-energy educational campaign and an army of 150 volunteers to convince voters to approve Measure A on June 4.
The $34 million bond will provide funds to make repairs: re-roofing, repainting, installation of new exterior lights, and purchase of new playground equipment to replace old equipment.
"We are ready this time," said Linda Kilian, co-chairwoman of Friends of Sunnyvale Schools, a group formed in January to get the measure passed. "We are more coordinated this time. We know what we want and how to go about it this time."
The last bond measure failed because only 57 percent of the voters approved it, said Kilian, president of the Sunnyvale school board.
Through Friends, set up after the school board agreed to put the bond measure on the election ballot, volunteers have called residents by phone to urge them to vote on the measure, Kilian said.
Of the 8,600 voters volunteers have contacted since March, 5,500 have said they would support the measure, representing about 64 percent of the vote, Kilian said. To win passage, the measure must garner 66.67 percent of the vote.
"They know what is at a stake," Kilian said. "Once people have heard what the needs are, they have been overwhelmingly supportive."
So far, Friends has solicited 200 endorsements from residents, businesses and civic groups, including the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce, Sunnyvale Mayor Robin Parker, the Sunnyvale City Council, the League of Women Voters of Cupertino-Sunnyvale, the American Association of University Women and the PenWest Realty Association.
If the measure is passed, individual households would pay on average $25 a year for the next 25 years, Kilian said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, May 22, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.