EDITORIAL

If you strip away the politics, hack out the bitterness some feel toward

school boards past and present, and put aside the abject mistrust, you

are left with this:

A young kid -- maybe a girl, maybe a boy, maybe a teen, maybe a

5-year-old -- trudging off to learn in a sinkhole that passes for a

school.

Ceilings sag, electricity fails, restrooms flood, rodents wander

blissfully through classrooms, walls and stairwells yawn in disrepair.

Though it may sound like a New York City shooting gallery, it is actually

the sad, yet fully accurate, picture of our schools.

The repair bill, the cost of making schools conform with basic health and

safety standards and taking just the slightest run at higher technology,

is $163 million.

The district does not have that kind of money. And they won’t next year.

Or the year after. Or even the year after that.

Some in the community grouse that if only their elected leaders and

seasoned administrators had paid more attention to the bottom line then,

why, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe, maybe not.

But we are in this mess, just like scores of other school districts up

and down the state. That is the acrid taste of reality. We are in this

mess.

And our students -- the leaders of tomorrow, our hope, our legacy -- make

do in this mess that we have left them as some sort of cruel inheritance.

Next Tuesday, voters have a fleeting opportunity to do something about

it. A chance -- the first time voters here have ever even taken such a

chance -- to put our schools back together again. It comes in the form of

a $110-million bond that appears on the ballot as Measure A. The cost

that we will shoulder is not onerous when it is broken down per household

-- an average of $48.49 per year for those living in a single-family home

in the Newport-Mesa area.

It’s a fleeting opportunity, because with the bond’s success comes a

onetime chance to collect $53 million in matching state money. Together,

bond and state money will produce enough to repair the schools and

establish an endowment fund to pay for future repairs.

This is a vote for our children and our grandchildren, not a vote against

some political block, some partisan ideology or the past sins of the

school board. This is simply an investment in our future, an investment

in tomorrow.

We urge you to vote yes on Measure A.