Los Angeles herald., 1907-03-31
SINKING FUND
BOARDS PLAN
FOR SCHOOLS
New Bond Issue Is
Planned
More Buildings Needed to Aooommo-
date Growing Population Of City
Proper and Newly An-
nexed Territory

"The only rational way the Los An
geles school system can keep pace
with the growing population is by the
establishment of a sinking fund for
school purposes. u. b. Monlux, dep
uty superintendent.
Possibly within the week, City At
torney Hewitt, together with Super
intendent e. G. Moore, will settle the
details of a special bond election,
which will be held in the near future
to decide whether or not the citizens
of Los Angeles will issue bonds for
SS6O,OO0 for school purposes Judging
by past attempts, the bonds will be
voted, but the question of how to pro-
vide schools for every child of school
age will be far from settled
At present 1000 children of this city
are attending school in shacks, bunga-
lows or lean-tos. Mr.. Monlux states
that there are almost fifty such tenn
porary structures at present In use at
the various schools, with every prob
ability of more which the board will
be compelled to construct. The rooms
average an attendance of between forty
and fifty pupils. At the Fourteenth
street school there is a regular colony
OF such makeshifts, seven in all. OF
these, three or four are in fairly good
condition, but the rest are simply
makeshiftS. With such imperfect
schools the board is compelled to ask
its teachers to train up children of
some of the best families in the coun-
try.
Suburbs Need Schools
Two years ago the board came be-
fore the Los Angeles voters with a re-
quest for bond issue of $7SO,OOO. The
money was voted without question
Again the board is asking for an even
larger sum, and the public wants to
know"
With wave of the hand, the school
oflicials points to the broad suburban
tracts that have been built up within
the last two years; and they are en-
tlrely willing to give an itemized ac-
count of their stewardship. New build
lngs, anneXes, reconstructions, and ad-
dltional lands and new school sites in
the growing districts have eaten great
holes in the old bond issue, and of the
seemingly vast sum very little is left.
the bond issue voted in 1904 was for
S4SO,OO0 for the common school fund,
$4,000 for the parental or detention
home, and S260,000 for the high school
fund. OF this, about $4,000 of the
parental fund remains intact-as the
building has not yet been constructed
and $4,000 or $4,000 of the common
school fund remains. BY the time the
, Los Angeles high school auditorium
and science hall is completed, the high
school fund will be spent to the last
dollar, and possibly overdrawn.
Parental School Not Built
The parental school property is near
Elysian park. A flaw in the title kept
the property tied up in court for a
long time. and as a result, the build
ing has not yet been constructed. The
site cost $4,000, leaving 100000 of the
fund for the building.
The S260,OOO allotted for high schools
has been stretched to the uttermost
to accommodate the needs of the sys-
tenn. According to Deputy Superin-
tendent MonluX, almost 100000 of the
fund was required to furnish the Poly
technic high school. Then, the Los
Angeles high school got it's share of the
spols.
Additional land of the old cemetery
which abuts the school grounds was
bought at a cost of $377O. A gymnasium
costing $546O was built Several weeks
ago the board decided to purchase an
other strip of land, which had been