SEQUIM — The failure of the Sequim School District’s fourth attempt in two years at passage of a school construction bond is “scary,” the district’s superintendent said.
The $54 million proposal didn’t make the
60 percent supermajority mark needed for a bond measure after an initial ballot count in Tuesday’s special election and a second count in Jefferson County on Wednesday.
The total from counts in both Clallam and Jefferson counties was 7,441, or 57.02 percent, approving it and 5,609, or 42.98 percent, opposed.
“I don’t know what to say,” district Superintendent Gary Neal said Tuesday night.
“It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I think this is a very scary statement by the community,” he added.
“This is bigger than a bond. There’s something else out there.”
In Clallam County, 7,344 votes approved the measure while 5,532 opposed it out of the 13,040 ballots in the district tallied by the Clallam County Auditor’s Office.
In Jefferson County, where about 200 people live within the Sequim School District, 97 voted yes and 77 no.
“We’re going to let the dust settle and regroup a little bit and catch our breath,” said Colleen Robinson, president of Citizens for Sequim Schools, on Wednesday.
“First, the Sequim School District takes the lead [on next steps],” she said.
The measure would have among other things paid for a new elementary school, added general education classrooms at Greywolf Elementary School, science classrooms at Sequim High School, new choir and band rooms at Sequim High and a major remodel of the school district’s kitchen that services each of the schools.
“The problems aren’t going to go away, and that’s something the opposition doesn’t seem to be getting,” Robinson said.
“What’s eventually going to happen is Helen Haller will be shut down, and we’ll have to start doing split shifts at Greywolf.”
Said Sequim High School senior Emma Eekhoff: “I feel like it’s so unfair.
“Emily [Webb, also a Sequim High senior] and I have the opportunity to leave and are going to universities, but for the kids in elementary school, they don’t have a choice.
“This is just going to bring younger and upcoming students down,” Eekhoff said.
Said Webb: “If they don’t feel like a community cares about them, then what do they have?”
It was the district’s fourth attempt to pass a construction bond since April 2014.
A $49.3 million bond proposal with a similar project list to that offered Tuesday fell short of the 60 percent mark by less than one-half of 1 percent.
A February 2014 bond proposal garnered 57.6 percent of the vote.
The April 2014 bond, which was for an ambitious $154 million, won about 47 percent yes votes.
“A ZIP code shouldn’t determine your level of education, and that’s what these kids are suffering from,” Neal told bond supporters as they gathered Tuesday night.
“I cannot believe this,” he told them. “I am shocked and I am sorry.
“Part of the problem is my job is to make sure that kids get the education that they need to succeed, and this [failure to pass a construction bond] becomes problematic because it begins to take us away from our real mission.”
Dave Mattingley, former bond campaign chairman, offered his support for Neal and future bond proposals Tuesday night.
“We have an excellent superintendent here, we have an excellent staff, and it may not be today, but we will have a bond and we will build a school,” he said.
“Education is very important for this community; it’s the growth that will drive this community.”
Robinson saw successes to celebrate.
“And the No. 1 is, more than the majority in our community want this,” she said.
“It isn’t like it’s a win for the ‘no’s’; it’s just that we didn’t meet the supermajority.”
“This doesn’t mean the problems are going to go away or the Citizens for Sequim Schools,” she said.
“We’ll keep moving forward and we’ll keep asking.”
Said Neal: “These kids need a different opportunity; there’s no argument to that.
“This isn’t about us or a lack of effort, and it’s not about what’s right,” he said. “There is something else going on out there.”
Full election results can be found at www.peninsuladailynews.com.
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The Olympic Peninsula News Group is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum.
