ESCONDIDO: Months of apparent unanimity on a $98 million bond measure for the Escondido Union High School District ended last night with a 4-1 vote as one school board member said he couldn't embrace a tax that wouldn't expire until 2054.

Despite voting against the decision to put the financing request before voters Nov. 4, Kurt Marler said he will back the measure itself “100 percent.”

Marler said he supports a new high school and improvements to three others called for in the measure.

“I just have a difficulty in the way we finance it,” he said.

Board members Tina Pope, Jon Petersen, Charlie Snowder and Pam Grosso were in favor.

District officials previously had opted to make the bond measure a 34-year extension of a tax increase approved by Escondido voters in 1996 and scheduled to expire in 2020. A new bond would produce almost immediate revenues, but taxpayers wouldn't be repaying the debt until 2021.

“In 2054, I'll be dead, and I really want to help pay for this bond,” Marler said. “I don't want to give it to my grandchildren to pay.”

Other board members argued that surveys had shown an extension, not a tax increase, was more likely to win the required 55 percent voter majority. –J.R.