Colfax resident Rocky Warren didn’t expect to become the center of controversy when he signed the argument opposing Measure Q, a Colfax Elementary School bond measure on the November ballot.

Colfax’s school district is proposing a $5 million bond intended for classroom and school improvement projects on the main campus. Property owners within the school’s boundaries are being asked to match the $2.5 million in developers’ fees and state funds earmarked for schools.

If passed, taxpayers would pay $26.50 per year per $100,000 of assessed value of the property.

“Basically, the school district has been losing attendance,” Warren explained. “And the school is not that old. When it was built there were cost overruns. Now they want more money. I want them to spend money more efficiently.”

Warren, the only Colfax resident signing the opposing argument, lists his profession as a retired sheriff’s sergeant and consultant.

And that’s what has attorneys representing the school district on the bond measure concerned.

They wanted Warren’s profession dropped from the measure, asking that he be identified simply as a Colfax resident.

“I’m concerned how people could interpret it. It creates the impression that law enforcement is against the measure,” said Sean Absher, a partner with Stradling, Yocca, Carlson and Rauth.

The signers of the argument in favor of the measure are identified only as individuals, he continued.

“There is no embellishment,” Absher said.

The firm, which is serving as legal counsel on the bond measure at no cost to the district, also raised concerns about non-Colfax residents signing the ballot argument.

Currently listed on the ballot argument along with Warren are Tom Hudson, chairman of the Placer County Republican Party; Mike Spence, president of the California Taxpayer Protection Committee based in Los Angeles and Jerry Simmons, former president of the Sierra College Board of Trustees.

Author of the argument against Measure Q is George E. Park, a Roseville resident and president of the Placer County Republican Assembly.

And yet, the district has decided not to challenge the issue in court.

Instead, they’re looking to the California School Board Association to lobby for legislature clarifying the election code requirements about signers, their identification and non-resident groups responding to ballot measures.

“We have decided not to take it to court and spend $17,000 to $23,000 to challenge the election code,” said Colfax Elementary School District Principal/Superintendent Jon Ray. “We’ll fight it through the legislature.”

While election codes vary from county to county, Placer County’s Election Code allows anyone to present an argument for or against a measure, explained Assistant Registrar of Voters Ryan Ronco. Nor does the author of the argument have to be a resident.

Ray also found it interesting that one of the individuals opposing the local bond measure (Mike Spence) is competing for the same funds.

“His school district is pursuing the same matching funds as we are,” he said.

Ronco added that the Placer County chapter of the Republican Party submitted opposing arguments to nearly every measure on Placer County’s November ballot.

It apparently didn’t matter if it was a school bond measure or the countywide measure on the Board of Supervisors’ pay, he said.

“Because they submitted arguments against everything, it raised our attention,” he said, adding that not all of their arguments were accepted.

In one case, the Elections Office accepted the argument from the League of Voters since they had been the original sponsor of the measure adopted in 1992.