Lynwood Unified School District voters decide on $37.4 million in bonds

Voters in the Lynwood Unified School District will decide today whether to authorize the district to issue $37.4 million in bonds to raise money to make campus improvements, while Inglewood residents will choose a replacement for Mayor Roosevelt Dorn, who resigned after pleading guilty to a conflict-of-interest charge.

LUSD voters will cast ballots on Measure AA, which would approve bonds for constructing, rehabilitating and modernizing school facilities across the district. The bonds, repaid through property taxes, are expected to cost taxpayers about $60 a year per $100,000 of assessed valuation, according to the district.

The measure requires support from 55 percent of voters to be approved.

"While our teachers and staff are doing their best to teach our children, the state's budgetary crisis is making it nearly impossible to provide our children with the kind of quality education and school facilities they deserve," according to a ballot argument authored by school board President Jose Luis Solache, board member Rachel Chavez and other officials.

In Inglewood, voters will choose from among nine candidates looking to replace Dorn, who pleaded guilty Jan. 25 to accepting a loan through a city-backed housing program.

Three City Council members – Ralph Franklin, Daniel Tabor and Judy Dunlap – are running for the mayor's seat, along with city Treasurer Wanda Brown and retired police Chief James T. Butts Jr. Also on the ballot are Realtor Justin Shillingford, financial administrator Lorraine Johnson, nurse Jacqueline B. Redeemer and businessman Juan Armando Minniefield.

If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election will be held in August. The winner will serve the remainder of Dorn's term, which ends in December.

Inglewood voters will also cast ballots on Measure CS, which would remove six municipal positions from the civil service system and make them classified jobs – meaning they could be fired at will. The affected employees would be the senior administrative analyst to the mayor, executive assistant to the mayor and City Council assistants.

The measure needs the approval of two-thirds of voters.

In Torrance, meanwhile, voters will decide on Measure A, which would change the date of the general municipal election to the last Tuesday in April of each even-numbered year.