Schools’ Part B rebuffed

Teresa Hinds

Tuesday, July 9, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

School district officials expressed shock and disappointment after coming up one vote short of getting the $173 million Part B of the school bond package approved by the Clark County Debt Management Commission.

After impassioned debate Monday, the commission killed Part B.

Commission Chairwoman Myrna Williams and members Yvonne Atkinson Gates and David Wood voted against putting Part B on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Howard Hollingsworth, who sits on the debt panel and the School Board, and commissioners Greg Jensen, Terry Lanni and Michael McDonald voted for Part B.

But by law, the panel needs a supermajority vote -- in this case five votes -- to carry a motion. The commission unanimously approved the $643 million Part A of the bond question.

School officials wanted voters to have the opportunity to approve both parts for a total school construction bond issue of $816 million. Now, they will only see Part A.

"I'm shocked and disappointed Part B didn't pass," said School Board member Jeff Burr. "I thought we would get five votes -- I thought we had the Henderson commissioner's vote," referring to Wood.

"The people in Henderson are going to be very disappointed. It was a very insensitive vote in my mind, not only for the children of Henderson, but for all the children of Clark County."

Superintendent Brian Cram painted a bleak future for Clark County students.

"I'm disappointed. I had hoped that as part of the democratic process, the voters would get a chance to choose whether they wanted Part B or not," Cram said. "Both Part A and Part B are in the best interest of kids.

"Our need for seats greatly outruns the seats we can produce. In the future, there will be more year-round schedules and double sessions and a whole bunch of things not in the best interest of kids."

At the opening of the meeting, commissioners Williams and Gates read biting statements aimed at School Board members and the media who have questioned the commission's authority over the school bond questions.

"We have been maligned by rumors via telephone, on television, in newspapers and political newsletters," Williams said. "We have even had a member of the School Board providing his personal and inaccurate spin to the print media regarding our motives and our legal right to vote no."

Williams also chastised School Board members and Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones for not meeting with the debt commission to coordinate the overlapping debt, which is at the base of their rejection of Part B of the bond issue. North Las Vegas, Mount Charleston, Laughlin and Las Vegas would exceed the 90 percent of the mandated property tax ceiling if both questions were put on the ballot and passed.

Jones last week publicly threw her support behind the entire school bond package.

In response to Williams' criticism, Jones said the debt commission's three no votes were actually yes votes for more growth.

"I don't know how you can support growth over taking care of kids today," Jones said. "My concern is not for water and sewer and for new people moving in, it's about school rooms for the children that live here today.

"The public is more than capable of (deciding) what their priorities are."

In an attempt to sway the commission before the vote, Cram said, "The real issue is that a great economic engine is bringing children to Clark County for us to house.

"To house kids in schools in the size we have now is absolutely wrong, it's immoral."

Cram said taxpayers can pay now for adequate educational facilities, or pay later in terms of higher crime rates and prison overcrowding.

The superintendent also expressed concern about the safety of double sessions. Children going to school in the darkness of early mornings and evenings are at risk of being molested, he said.

"We have an obligation to serve the kids," Cram said. "We can't get lost in the numbers being pushed around here today."

In addition to voting against Part B of the bond package because of fiscal matters, Williams said she was "frustrated with the lack of attention paid to the older schools, based on the myriad of calls I've received from people in my district."

Williams' executive assistant, Kristi Kraus, said Williams has received more than 300 calls since the first vote by the commission on the school bond in June. The commission also rejected Part B at that meeting.

"It's been virtual mayhem," Kraus said. She said calls came from parents and high school students who said they don't want smaller schools, but rather better transportation, teachers and curriculum.

"Ninety percent of the callers wanted to know where the money from the 1994 bond issue is going," Kraus said. "The parents are frustrated because they don't see anything from the '94 bond issue yet."

The School Board must now rewrite the bond proposal if it is to meet the July 15 deadline of presenting it to the Clark County registrar of voters so it may be placed on the Nov. 5 ballot.

The issue will be addressed at tonight's School Board meeting.

Cram said he didn't see much need for altering Part A as it is currently written, and predicted minimal reconfiguration of the bond question.

Burr, however, sees the need for a massive rewrite.

"I can't support Part A as it is written now," he said. "We need more middle schools and smaller high schools. Part A includes making smaller schools larger. I can't support that. There has to be a massive shift of priorities, massive restructuring.

"The debt panel approved the total dollar amount. We can, the way we word the agenda item, restructure it any way we want."