CHIMACUM — After a public hearing that drew more than 100 people Wednesday night, the Chimacum School Board has yet to decide whether to resubmit a twice-failed bond issue in April or wait until a later date.
“This bond needs to go more than anything. People don’t understand how much we need this in our schools,” said high school senior Deidra Morris in an emotional plea.
“They aren’t in the school every day, but the students are, and they know this needs to happen.”
School board member Kevin Miller said there had never been as many people at a meeting in the 14 years he has served.
“We’ve never had this many constituents come to meetings in a whole year,” he said. “If we had this kind of energy before the vote, it would have passed.”
Bond’s aim
The $29.1 million measure would have financed an addition to Chimacum Creek Primary School, making it into a full-fledged elementary school housing preschool through fifth grade, along with some needed capital improvements.
The current elementary school, a 1948 building in disrepair, would have been demolished.
More than 30 people offered public comment, all supporting the idea of resubmitting the bond but differing on what the district should do next.
Many commenters blamed the bond’s failure on an inability to get the message out, while others said some bond supporters were so convinced of its passage, they failed to vote.
The timing provided the biggest debate, with some supporting an immediate retry to take advantage of current momentum and others favoring taking the time to develop a new campaign that would have a greater chance of success.
The deadline to submit a measure for the April 26 election is Friday, Feb. 26.
Meeting today
In order to determine a concrete strategy for the possible resubmission of the bond, the board created a subcommittee that will hold a meeting at 9 a.m. today at the Jefferson County Library, 620 Cedar Ave. in Port Hadlock.
The subcommittee consists of board chair Cammy Brown and board member Maggie Ejde and will meet with bond supporters to develop a plan for selling the bond to the public enough to gain the supermajority necessary to pass the measure.
Because there won’t be enough members to form a quorum, the district is not required to provide advance notice for the meeting, which is open to the public.
Following the recommendations of the subcommittee, the board could take action either at a planned retreat Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. or at its regular meeting Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Both meetings will occur on the Chimacum Schools campus, 91 West Valley Road.
On Feb. 9, the measure gained support from 2,710 voters, or 57.97 percent, and was opposed by 1,965 voters, or 42.03 percent, about 100 votes short of what it needed for the 60 percent-plus-one vote needed for approval.
Port Townsend bond
At the same time, the Port Townsend School District won 73.23 percent approval for a $40.9 million construction bond.
The measures were similar, both using the majority of the funds to renovate or reconfigure the districts’ sole elementary schools, with the remainder used for capital projects.
Wednesday’s meeting began with a presentation by Jeff Randall, who chaired a committee advocating the Port Townsend measure, in the hope he could offer some advice as to how to pass the Chimacum bond.
Randall advised the district not to act too soon after the defeat and to plan a strategic marketing campaign to get the word out.
“You don’t have momentum. You have a problem,” he said.
“Some people might say, ‘You just put this on the ballot and we voted this down, why are you doing this again?’ ”
A sustained campaign would give the district time to get the message to voters as to why they should vote for the bond, Randall said. He advised the district to solicit business sponsorship and support and not to be afraid to ask for money.
Independent committee
Randall’s advice was seconded by Gordon James of Port Ludlow, who advised the board to let an independent committee do the heavy lifting.
“You guys should just sit back and offer some help and direction,” he said. “You can’t sell this program. You’ve proved that twice.”
James said if it fails a third time, “you’re done, and it’s gone.”
The district can offer a bond measure twice in one year. If it were to fail in April, the next opportunity would be in February 2017, at which time the district plans to sponsor a maintenance and operations levy.
There are election options in August and November, but they are not desirable because of low voter turnout in the summer and competition with the presidential election.
Most of the speakers seemed to favor waiting to develop a new proposal, but the tide turned after Morris’ remarks and several commitments by potential volunteers.
Another turning point occurred when school security became an issue.
“When you see the access that anyone can have to my classroom and that if something happens in the office we will never know, you can’t even think about voting no,” said fifth-grade teacher Mitch Brennan.
“There are things we need to do to secure our kids.”
‘Protector, not a victim’
Brennan said he chose to become a “protector and not a victim” and keeps two baseball bats to battle any intruder.
“The kids don’t even know they [the bats] are there,” he said, then acknowledged the presence of a parent of one of his students. “Well, now they do.”
Whitney Meissner, Chimacum High School principal, was overwhelmed by the support shown at the meeting.
“I was impressed by the level of commitment, passion and compassion as people spoke to different issues,” she said Thursday.
“People were thoughtful and listened to people who had different perspectives.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
