After four days of secret
negotiations and a startling last-minute pact Saturday
night, organized opponents of Tuesday's Washoe County
School District's $196 million bond ballot issue have
agreed to support the measure. The price? Fiscal constraints on the school
district, specifically: - A
management audit of the school district prior to
the second, October 1997, phase of bond sales;
- A
new, high-profile role for the school board's
financial advisory committee;
- Thorough,
updated studies of multi-track, year-round
schooling before the district again seeks any
more bonds.
With
preliminary surveys indicating the school bond was headed
for a solid defeat Tuesday, say leaders of the Citizens
Associated for Responsible Education in our Schools
(CARES), they began seeking a deal with the school
district early last week. "We always had an interest in
the welfare of the students. It was my feeling that we
could get a negotiated agreement that gave us everything
we wanted," said paid CARES consultant Mike Reed. "When it became apparent to me
that we were likely to win, then we had real negotiating
strength." That a major school district defeat
was imminent was the reading produced Friday by a cursory
EN sampling of previously undecided Truckee
Meadows voters. It also was supported by interviews with
some experienced local election observers. "I think it's going down,"
said one long-time Truckee Meadows political observer,
who asked to remain anonymous because of a sensitive
position. "I don't think they've
convinced anyone. That's [school district spokesman
Steve] Mulvenon's problem. He's out there busting his
balls on all these TV programs, and I just don't think
[people are] buying," said the source. "They're trying to make an
argument, and I just don't think it comes through. I live
in an area that's supposed to get a high school, or at
least some kind of a school. And people in this
neighborhood are going to vote against it. "I think it's going down,"
he repeated. "I don't see how they can pass
it." Other observers also saw sentiment
hardening against the bond proposal. When Electric Nevada first
located CARES strategist Reed on Friday, and asked if his
group was going to match plans by bond proponents to send
precinct-walking volunteers out this weekend, he said
'no,' and added he didn't think it would be productive. Not only would it be the Labor Day
weekend, when many people are gone or simply don't want
to be bothered, he said. Indications are also that
Truckee Meadows voters have already firmly made up their
minds. What "I found in the last
week," said Reed, "is that if you go around and
talk to ten people, and ask them if they've made up their
mind on how they're going to vote, you're almost going to
get ten people saying 'yes.' "I don't think there's very
many undecided. And the way you sway elections is by
convincing the undecided bloc. "If there isn't one, basically
the election is all over. People are just going to walk
in and vote the way they've already come down. "That's where we are," he
said. "People are very passionate on either side of
this issue." Reed decline to forecast victory,
but did acknowledge indications swing voters seemed to be
siding with CARES. Should Truckee Meadows voters decide
to vote 'no' on the school bond issue Tuesday, it will be
a serious repudiation of Washoe County School District
leadership. Not only have the school district's
superintendent, Mary Nebgen, and spokesman, Steve
Mulvenon, been stumping the community in advocacy for
months, but bond plan backers appear to have put much
more money and people into the campaign than have their
opponents. As of Friday, August 30, the
pro-bond Citizens Committee to Support Our Schools
[CCSOS] had filed forms with the Washoe County Registrar
of Voters reporting a total raised of $15,375, while the
anti-bond group, CARES, has reported a total raised of
$11,780. However, Gazette-Journal reporter
Benjamin Grove wrote August 18 that the pro-bond CCSOS
had raised "about $50,000" to handle television
and radio spot ads, and some 20,000 targeted voter
mailings. CARES leader James F. Clark has
asked the Nevada Secretary of State's office to look into
the discrepancy, arguing that the television campaign
fielded by CCSOS suggests expenditures more in line with
the reported $50,000 than the financial filings of the
pro-bond group. "I think it's against federal
FCC regulations to give political ads on credit, so I'm
not sure how they could have filed that statement on
August 19, which was after the TV ads began to run,
without disclosing the expenditure or the additional
money [which] would have paid for it," said Clark. In addition to the larger budget,
proponents of bond passage say they are deploying the
long-running and well-tested get-out-the-vote operation
of the Nevada State Education Association [NSEA] this
week-end. "It's the same kind of campaign
that we do for assembly people, and for senate, and for
school board races," says CCSOS member Virginia
Doran, a leader of the Washoe County Teachers Association
who was reached at the Reno offices of the NSEA. "You identify the precincts
that have a history of voter turnout. We've analyzed the
precincts with regard to the last two bond issues --
where in fact they've carried bond issues in the past --
and we've added to that precincts where some of the new
schools are going to be built because of the terrible
overcrowding." Those targeted precincts, she said,
held an initial 36,000 voters. "Then you get a list of
registered voters. You use 
a company to do what they call a phone match,
because obviously you don't get phone numbers from the
registrar's office."
With voter's names and addresses
from the county registrar now matched to telephone
numbers, volunteers on the phone banks begin contacting
voters to discuss the bond issue with them. For those
names and addressees on the registrar's list where no
matching phone number is found, says Doran, a mailing
piece will be dispatched -- at least until funds run out.
Most of the CCSOS group's money is
going into television and radio advertising, she said,
explaining that the ability to field volunteers gives the
WCTA and like organizations an advantage.
"We have a lot of people who
will walk precincts, And so that's another way to get the
word out and the pieces out. So we probably have walkers
out targeting at least, probably, 15,000 voters,"
she said.
After the initially targeted 36,000
voters, she said, "we added to that [the] various
people who called up and said 'I want to walk my
neighborhood.'
"And so after you cover your
targeted precincts, then you start adding to that, as you
have walkers and volunteers. And you use the same kind of
process -- number of voters, voter turnout -- those kinds
of things," said Doran.
Although she was reached at the
NSEA's Reno headquarters, the WCTA's Doran denied any
NSEA involvement in the effort to pass the bond issue.
"The NEA and NSEA is not
involved in this at all. We're just ... in our building,
which is a conduit, right here. [It's] for a central
location for people to pick up signs and walking pieces
and so forth."
She said that potential volunteers
are recruited through a network of representatives
throughout the school district.
"We have at least one rep at
least in every school building and we just tell them,
'These are the activities that are going to take place If
you're interested in doing anything, you call.'"
The propriety of taxpayer-paid
public employees possibly using their positions to seek
higher levies on tax payers came up as an issue several
times in Electric Nevada's Friday interviews.
School district spokesman Steve
Mulvenon acknowledged that he had accepted checks to fund
the CCSOS's pro-bond campaign at his district office.
"To the best of my recollection
it happened twice," he said "Don't hold me to
this, but I think on one of those two occasions ... it
was actually the Laborers' union.
"They sent a couple of guys up
and said, 'What do we do with this check?' And I said, 'I
can get it to the committee, if you want to leave it with
me.'
As of Friday, no contribution from
such a labor organization had been listed with the county
registrar's office.
Away from his desk, Mulvenon was
able to -- from memory -- correctly give Electric
Nevada the office telephone number of CCSOS treasurer
Dave Bianchi.
"I believe Dave's number is
826-1727," said Mulvenon.
He then volunteered, "The
reason I'm not all that familiar with it is I wasn't a
member of that committee."
"I met with them on a couple of
occasions just to kind of keep lines of communications
open, and when they had specific questions about the bond
issue I was their resource person... for what's in it and
how does this work and how does that work. But that was a
private citizen's group."
According to WCTA leader Doran,
Mulvenon was scheduled to help run the CCSOS phone-bank
operation Friday evening.
Though she would try to answer
EN 's questions, she said, "whatever I can't
answer, I'll get Steve Mulvenon from the district to call
you. He'll be here at 5 o'clock to help me run the phone
banks, so if I can't answer something I'll have Steve
call you."
Similarly, Mr. Mulvenon's name came
up when Electric Nevada telephoned the offices of
the McMullen Strategic Group.
The firm's principal, major Nevada
legislative lobbyist Sam McMullen, who later explained he
has been contributing his services to the CCSOS effort
since early this year, initially answered the phone:
"Steve Mulvenon?"
And later, when the Electric
Nevada reporter said, "I take it you're working
closely with Steve Mulvenon?" McMullen answered:
"Yeah. Actually, Steve and I
have talked over the last few months, but he works more
closely with Dave Bianchi."
McMullen said he had joined the
pro-bond effort after meeting Mulvenon early this year at
a Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce informational meeting.
"I guess I'd say I know a
little about politics, and I was interested in helping
[do] something responsible on this thing and that's what
I've been doing."
He noted that he was taking no fee
for helping the CCSOS effort, while his opposite number
on the CARES side, Mike Reed, was being paid, according
to CARES filings, $9,000.
He also said that criticisms leveled
by CARES regarding CCSOS filings at the county registrar
stemmed in part from mix-ups when two pro-bond advocacy
groups had been folded into the one remaining CCSOS
group.
All of the $15,375 reported as of
Friday by the Citizens Committee to Support Our Schools
on forms filed with the Washoe County Registrar of
Voters, came from building industry or contractor
sources.
Listed as contributors were: United
Construction, $5,000; Clark & Sullivan Constructors,
Inc., $5,000; Associated General Contractors, $1250;
Nevada Construction Industry Promotion Bureau, $1,000;
Employers Contract, $1,000; Construction Industry,
$1,000; Contract Administration Fund, $750.