BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

SEA BRIGHT - Borough residents take note: it's not how you vote on Shore Regional High School District's proposed $50 million construction referendum, but just that you get to the poll on Sept. 26.

At stake is the grade nine-through-12 district's $49.8 million proposal to upgrade existing facilities at the more-than-40-year-old high school attended by about 20 Sea Bright students.

"Go out and vote," Mayor Jo-Ann Kalaka-Adams told those gathered at the Borough Council's Aug. 15 meeting. "Your vote is important. Historically, voter turnout in school elections is very low."

Less than 10 percent of Sea Bright's registered voters came out for the last board elections held on April 18.

Should the referendum be approved by a majority of voters in Shore Regional's four sending towns - Sea Bright, West Long Branch, Monmouth Beach and Oceanport - annual district taxes would be raised proportional to what property owners in each municipality contribute to yearly school budgets.

For Sea Bright, which sends the fewest students to the school situated in West Long Branch, average annual district taxes for property owners would increase by $188.14 on a home assessed at $383,000, the borough average, according to district figures released last week.

Property owners in Sea Bright would continue to pay the tax increase, which breaks down to 4.91 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, over the 30-year life of the bond, District Business Administrator Stephen Brennan has said.

That does not include the interest on the bond over the 30 years, Kalaka-Adams noted.

The New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) has pledged to contribute $17.8 million, or nearly 36 percent, of the total construction cost of $49.8 million, leaving district taxpayers responsible for the remaining $31.9 million.

However, if the building plan passes with a majority of voters, Sea Bright might be forced to delay construction on its own projects, particularly a proposed new borough hall or the renovation of its existing facility at 1167 Ocean Ave., Kalaka-Adams said.

To date, the borough engineer has not yet provided estimates for either erecting a new building or renovating the current one.

"We would have to put everything on hold," Kalaka-Adams said.

Even if the referendum fails, property owners in Sea Bright - and the other sending communities - will still have to pay for renovations to the campus through the Shore Regional High School Board of Education's annual budget according to Councilwoman Dina Long.

"[The renovations] would have to come out of their annual budgets," said Long, who chair's the council's education committee. "There would be an impact on Sea Bright no matter what."

On the borough's behalf, Long promised to contact Brennan for a breakdown of costs for specific items to be covered by the referendum, as listed in a district newsletter dated July 2006, including technology upgrades, renovations to the school's gymnasium and improvements to classrooms, science labs and music rooms.

"Once we have all of this information, we can do a mailing to all the residents of Sea Bright," Long said.

Costs for referendum items are broken down, not in terms of individual projects as Sea Bright would prefer, but by categories pertaining to construction phases such as site work, engineering and contracting, Brennan said in an interview last Thursday.

"We don't have the information in the way that they want it," Brennan said. "It isn't available."

Nonetheless, Brennan recommends that officials and residents of all four sending towns bring their questions about itemized costs of the construction projects to the open houses scheduled by the district from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 12 and Sept. 21 at the school's campus.

A tour of the building and grounds is also scheduled for 9 to 11 a.m. on Sept. 16.

"We're not holding back any information," Brennan said.

Another newsletter about the referendum will go out to residents of all four sending towns after Labor Day weekend, he noted.

Brennan added that he has spoken to the West Long Branch postmaster about ensuring that the newsletter gets into mailboxes in Sea Bright, which shares a zip code with Rumson.

Information about the referendum can also be found on the district Web site, www.shoreregional.org, he said.

The school board voted in March to pursue the referendum after reviewing suggestions gathered for building upgrades that were gathered by a group of parents, faculty and area residents known as the Community Facilities Task Force last fall.

Though Sea Bright officials maintain that they were never notified of the existence of the task force or its meetings, Joan Brearley, the town's school board representative, said that the district did not snub the town.

No invitation was necessary to come to the task force meetings, held monthly from September to December of last year, Brearley told officials at the Aug. 15 council meeting.

"No one else from Sea Bright came," said Brearley, who said she attended the task force sessions. "It was certainly not intentional that we left you out."

In April, the preliminary referendum plan was submitted to the state DOE for its review and endorsement, which came back in late July, Brennan has said.