Crucial questions about the proposed bond issue

Last night the Board of Trustees asked the administration to return at a soon to be announced special board meeting to consider a prioritized list of projects to be funded by the proposed 25-30 year $5 million bond measure. The measure is slated for the November 2012 ballot. The board was definitely split last night and after a lengthy discussion asked to continue the discussion.

There is no doubt that many of these projects are extremely worthy and a few need to be done soon. However, there are several questions that still need to be closely considered before taking such an expensive step to put this issue before the voters with the November election coming up fast.

First, what happened with the still ongoing bond measure? The District still has 3 more years to pay off its current 20 year bond passed in 1995. It is unclear how much the District taxpayers still owe for that one. The District has not prepared an analysis of how much that bond measure raised, spent and cost with interest. What happened with the money? How was it used? Were the projects completed satisfactorily? Did the projects that taxpayers were told needed to be done actually got done?

In order to successfully sell another bond measure the District needs to demonstrate that it successfully and effectively used the money from the last one.

Second, how much will this $5 million bond actually cost over the 25-30 year period? Even though interest rates and construction costs are very low right now is borrowing the money going to end up costing taxpayers even more than raising it in today's dollars from tax and fee revenues? When the consultant presented the results of his poll several months ago he said that he didn't ask any questions about whether voters would support other sources of funding for these projects. Shouldn't the District be asking this question before proceeding to put a bond on the ballot?

What is the most financially prudent way to raise the money for these much needed projects?

Finally, with Governor Brown's critically needed tax measure (and a less effective competing measure) on the ballot in November are we risking voter backlash by also asking them to improve another bond measure? The consultant didn't ask this question in his poll either.

There is no disputing how critically important these projects are and that they would bring much needed employment to the Valley but the District still needs to address these issues before it proceeds with another bond measure.

Afterall, if the bond measure fails to get its 55% threshold to pass it will blow an opportunity to raise this money for a time to come. It shouldn't rush its decision. There will be a governor's race on the 2014 ballot that will have a high turnout making passage also more likely. And in the meantime, maybe it can begin to find the funds to fix the most urgent problems.