IRVINE : Voter Drive Opens for School Tax Hike

With a vote two months away on a tax increase that would raise $5.6 million for the Irvine Unified School District, proponents have started a huge voter registration drive in hope of increasing the turnout of people most likely to support the measure.

The effort is being coordinated and funded by a group of parents and educators who support the increase.

A similar tactic was used successfully last year in the Los Alamitos Unified School District.

On June 4, voters will decide whether to approve a tax of $35 per parcel to help offset increasing costs and cuts in state funding. If approved, the tax would last four years and raise about $1.4 million annually.

Every parcel of land in the district would be taxed, although property owners older than 65 could apply for an exemption. The extra income would help make up an estimated budget deficit next year that could reach $3.3 million, district spokeswoman Pat Gibson said.

Each of the district’s more than 20,000 students are being asked to make sure that their parents are registered to vote, district officials said. Officials are also encouraging 18-year-old students in the district, who number about 100, to register.

And about 10,000 students in kindergarten to eighth grades are being sent home with two voter registration forms and a letter from Supt. David E. Brown encouraging parents to register, Gibson said.

The forms can be returned the next morning with students, and the district will forward the paperwork to the registrar of voters, Gibson said.

“We’re just saying that being registered to vote is an important civic responsibility, and we’re providing them with the wherewithal to do that as painlessly as possible,” school board member Mary Ellen Hadley said.

The district is not spending school money to encourage voter registration or using district workers to coordinate the effort, Hadley said. Printing and other costs are being handled by Partnerships in Irvine Education, a group of about 150 teachers, administrators and parents who support the tax proposed by Measure P.

“It’s perfectly legal for the district to provide information, but advocacy is not appropriate,” said Hadley, chairwoman of Partnerships in Irvine Education. “We can tell people there’s an election in June, we can tell them to vote, but we cannot tell them to vote (for the tax increase). We are very carefully avoiding doing any of those types of things.”

The voter registration drive has drawn fire from David G. Epstein, an Irvine resident and lawyer who wrote the ballot argument opposing the tax.

He called the district’s moves “outrageous” and added that he thinks it is inappropriate for the school to be involved in such a voter registration drive.

Epstein said he opposes the tax, which he said would unfairly charge every landowner the same amount, regardless of the size of parcel.

He also said he opposes the timing of the election: “Scheduling the election when they did is sneaky. They’re counting on the fact that people won’t vote (during local summer elections). They’re hoping they can get their troops out and hoping everyone else is asleep at the switch.”

The three dozen members of Partnerships in Irvine Education have been calling the parents of every student in the district to encourage them to use the registration materials.

In May, group members will start going door to door to campaign for the tax. The organization has also hired a consultant, Price Research of San Ramon, a Bay Area campaign management firm that specializes in school-related parcel tax elections. Hadley said 90% of the campaigns managed by the group receive voter approval.