Daily Breeze Endorses Yes on Measure Y and Z

Bond measure supporters will wake up to good news on Sunday if they are Daily Breeze readers:

`Yes' on Measures Y, Z
Torrance school officials paint a picture of political Armageddon if Measure Y on the Nov. 4 ballot goes down to defeat. They would look at closing some campuses and selling them to raise modernization funds for the remaining schools.

The process of selecting which campuses would close is ugly in itself. It would pit neighborhoods and school stakeholders against each other. Bitterness over the outcome would last for years.

To raise the needed funds, some land would likely have to be sold to housing developers. And anyone who's lived in Torrance over the past decade knows what a political firestorm that would cause in the city.

The remaining campuses would have to deal with increased traffic and density problems, as well as less green space. The Torrance Unified School District very possibly would not be the lure it once was to prospective homeowners, creating a drag on property values.

The headlines gives away their stance on the bond measures, but it's great to see their explicit support in black and white at the end of the editorial:

Unlike most other school districts in the region, Torrance has passed only one school bond measure in the past 40 years, and that one will be fully paid off in about five years. Furthermore, Torrance Unified has the second lowest bond tax rate in all of Los Angeles County.

Anyone familiar with school budgets knows that state mandates and personnel needs determine where most of the money will go. Few discretionary funds are available to address the Torrance district's aging infrastructure. Bond measures are just about the only viable way of raising such funds for capital projects. We recommend "Yes" votes on Measures Y and Z on Election Day.

With the great party/fundraiser at Red Car today (some pictures from the event will appear on the site soon by the way) to the strong endorsement for the measures by the Daily Breeze, I'm sensing some real momentum.

Just around 25 days left to make sure we get to victory. I'll be phonebanking tomorrow at the Del Amo office for a few hours to do my part.