Polk County News
12A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • November 16, 2016
Central voters say
no to school bond
Giving Spirit
By Emily Mentzer
The Itemizer-Observer
JENNIFER ROBERTS/for the Itemizer-Observer
The Focus Pocus 4-H Club helped collect and pack boxes for Operation Christmas Child on Friday. The group
packed approximately 50 boxes. All boxes received a toothbrush, soap and included items for kids, including
dolls, games, gloves and more. Operation Christmas Child collects boxes for children around the world who do
not have gifts for Christmas. For more information about 4-H: 503-623-8395.
Falls City gym bond fails again
Voters in the school district reject funding for new facility for a second time
By Jolene Guzman
Measure 27-120
The Itemizer-Observer
FALLS CITY — Falls City
School District’s second at-
tempt at passing a $2 million
bond to build a multipur-
pose gym at its elementary
school site suffered another
narrow loss.
The bond failed by 11
votes in May. This time the
margin was 32 — 297 “yes”
votes to 329 voting “no.”
“I’m disappointed be-
cause the need has not gone
away,” said Superintendent
Jack Thompson. “I hope we
go out for it again.”
District officials said a
new facility was needed to
give elementary students a
Yes — 297, 47 percent
No — 329, 52 percent
place to exercise in in-
clement weather and to take
the stress off Falls City High
School’s gym, the only one
in the district.
A modern kitchen would
have provided staff the abili-
ty to make more fresh food,
more room to work, and up-
dated appliances, including
a dishwasher.
The failure means the dis-
trict lost out on a state
matching grant that would
have given $2 million more
to Falls City to build the fa-
cility, which would have
served as a gym and kitchen.
Falls City also was in line for
the grant in the first attempt
to get the bond passed.
“People may still be at the
point of not feeling they can
afford that property tax,”
Thompson said.
The bond would have
charged property owners
$1.30 per $1,000 of assessed
value over 20 years.
Falls City School Board
met on Tuesday after press
time, and Thompson said
the election results would be
a topic of conversation.
He said he would ask if
the board wanted him to
conduct a survey of the
community to find the rea-
son people voted “no” on the
measure.
“I haven’t done one this
time to see why,” Thompson
said. “I will talk to the board
(Tuesday) to see if they want
me to do one.”
INDEPENDENCE/MONMOUTH — Voters said “no”
on Nov. 8 to Central School District’s request for a $26
million facilities bond, 4,636 to 4,164 (52 to 47 percent).
Business Manager Cec Koontz said that district offi-
cials have yet to formulate a plan b, partly because the
specific conditions, including low interest rates, may not
repeat themselves.
“The opportunity to ensure the matching grant from
the state would be available is another thing that drove
our timing,” Koontz said. “To take advantage of those
things again, we’d have to go back out in May.”
With the search for a superintendent and a high
school principal this spring, Koontz said it’s not feasible
to attempt to talk to the community about a bond at
that time.
Koontz said that had voters approved the bond, Central
schools would have received a $4 million grant from the
state to help build the new gyms and classrooms —
something officials couldn’t promise during the election,
but knew was possible.
“We were first on the waiting list,” Koontz said. “Only
two of the six who were guaranteed funding passed their
bonds.”
Overall, it was a pretty negative election for school
bonds, Koontz said, noting that bonds passed on the east
side of the mountains, but many on the west side failed.
“It was tough,” Koontz said. “Measure 97 was a very
divisive and difficult issue, when you’re thinking about
schools and school funding.”
She said that even if Measure 97 had passed, it would
not have addressed the facility needs at Central schools.
“We couldn’t have used Measure 97 for capital items,”
Koontz said. “That’s our job to explain those differences.
Maybe we didn’t do that.”
Koontz and Superintendent Buzz Brazeau were at an
Oregon School Boards Association conference in Port-
land throughout the weekend. Koontz said they hadn’t
been able to reconvene the bond exploration committee
yet to debrief from the election results.
She said the members of the bond exploration com-
mittee did a great job driving the process.
“We had some great parents who were active and en-
gaged, but apparently we didn’t get the story told,” she
said. “So we’ll see what the exploration committee is in-
terested in.”
With the state budget shaping up to be tight, Koontz
said there’s no guarantee the grant program will be rein-
stated for the next biennium. Another factor is the in-
crease in contributions to the public employee retire-
ment system, which the district — among other govern-
ment bodies — will struggle to meet.
“We’re going to have to do something,” Koontz said.
“None of these projects can wait. Talmadge (Middle
School) has another bubble of kids coming next year, so
we’re going to have to look at some things, maybe use
the construction excise taxes we have or capital im-
provement funds, but it won’t do any of the gyms. It
won’t do the cafeteria, and it won’t replace the portables
at IES.”