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whole community excited and certainly excited the Board.

In California the structural requirements of school buildings are extremely high so when the Board called for a structural review of all elementary schools I knew we were in real trouble because none of the schools would pass inspection and we did not have the money to replace them. Sure enough, we had three whole schools condemned including the Mexican school which was my original target.

Under California law, when a school building is condemned, the Board Members are personally liable if a student is injured in that building so we were in a very precarious spot with three condemned school plants. We decided to take a chance on using two of the schools. In the case of Norco, we negotiated with the Navy and were able to use a building at the Naval Hospital.

I was aware that local school districts were eligible for State assistance if they were bonded to capacity and still could not house their pupils. When I estimated the cost of three new elementary schools and checked our bonding capacity, I saw that by voting a new bond issue we would reach our bonding capacity and would still be unable to house our pupils. This situation would make us eligible for a State grant.

Again I sat down with Frank Bishop and outlined a finance program that would do a number of things. It would get us three new elementary schools, purchase the school bus fleet, give substantial raises to school employees and provide some needed improvements at the high school and junior high. All we would need to do was to pass a bond issue at the elementary level, a bond issue at the high school, a tax override at the elementary level and a tax override at the high school. In addition, we needed approval from the voters to accept state assistance to build three new elementary schools.

Only an idiot would try to get voter approval of all those propositions at once but I thought each one was important and would stand on its own. I convinced the Board and the Superintendent that we should schedule an election in both districts and put the bond and tax propositions up to the voters. After all, we might get lucky and pass the whole outfit. They agreed and placed the item on the agenda for the next Board meeting for action.

Early the next day, I received a call from Joy Jamison and he wanted to talk with me in his office. I agreed to be there at ten o'clock. Mr Jamison was a major citrus grower and was head of the cooperative that owned Lemon Exchange Products. When I arrived at his office he was most cordial. We had a cup of coffee and he told me how efficiently the schools had operated long before I ever arrived on the scene. He told me that the tax rate for schools was high enough at its present level and that he was opposed to a special election which he had heard was being planned. I thanked him for his words of wisdom and for the coffee and then went on my way. I never heard from him again but obviously the Board and Superintendent had been under his control for many years.

I do not want to give the impression that nothing was going on