Library tax measure now leads

Talk about a late plot twist.

Thursday ballot count updates from Clark, Skamania and Klickitat counties and the Woodland area have pushed the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District property tax levy measure to the brink of passing, after all.

Combined, the new total count is 43,276 votes for, 42,830 votes against, or 50.26 percent for and 49.74 percent against. This comes after the measure trailed, 49.8 percent for to 50.2 percent against, each of the last two days across FVRL’s four-county voting territory.

“We’re thrilled,” said Bruce Ziegman, library district executive director. “Honestly, after Wednesday’s count, I have to say this was unexpected.”

Perhaps the late mail-in voters, whose ballots were mostly those processed on Thursday, are more enamored with libraries. In any case, Ziegman said he is “cautiously ecstatic” after the “roller-coaster” turn of events.

“It’s nice to be ahead. It’ll probably be a while, several days, before we know for sure,” he said.

Tim Likness, Clark County elections supervisor, said about 12,000 ballots were counted Thursday, after 8,700 were tabulated on Wednesday.

He estimates only about 1,500 ballots remain: 400 or so to be counted today, then another 1,100 to emerge from a stack of ballots put aside for lack of signature or some challenge or other problem, he said.

Likness stopped short of declaring the library vote cinched.

“It’s still pretty close. I don’t consider it over,” he said. “Those (ballots) have been pretty close all along.”

Updated numbers showed the measure still trailing in Clark County, 38,080 votes in favor, to 39,227 votes against (49.3 percent to 50.7 percent). But that gap narrowed on Thursday by more than 500 votes, to an 1,147-vote deficit.

Meanwhile, 63 percent support for the measure in Klickitat County pushed the lead there to 1,469 votes: 3,417 votes for, 1,948 votes against. A new count from Skamania reflected only 12 additional ballots; the levy still was ahead, 1,524 votes for, to 1,367 votes against. In the Woodland area of Cowlitz County, another 23 ballots Thursday brought the count to 255 votes for, 288 votes against.

The results from all counties add up to a 446-vote lead for passage.

The FVRL measure would raise the library tax levy to a statutory maximum 50 cents per $1,000 assessed value in 2011. The expected 8-cent rate increase would cost the owner of a home worth $200,000 about $16 more.

The levy lid increase would raise about $2.7 million in new revenue for 2011. Officials say that will allow FVRL to restore branch operating days and hours that were trimmed in early 2009, including a full, seven-day schedule at the new Vancouver Community Library, and to beef up book and other collections at all 13 branches.

New building a factor?

Ziegman previously pointed to the poor economy as the chief reason the levy measure trailed in Clark County.

Asked whether the new downtown branch rising at Evergreen Boulevard and C Street could have stirred additional opposition (or even the new Cascade Park branch opened last year), he conceded some impact.

“I think it cuts both ways,” Ziegman said. Many supporters voted for (a 2006 library construction bond) and want to get full use of the facility, while there are “others perhaps resenting it,” he said.

“There was no negative tinge” that he heard prior to the election, he said.

“Most people we talked to are proud to have that building, and thrilled to have that new public institution that will serve them 50 or a hundred years,” Ziegman said. The project was planned and designed before the economy crashed, and library operating revenues are bound to rise and fall during its long lifetime, he said.

“We were taking the long view … this will be a lasting gift,” he said.

No change elsewhere

Two other fairly tight Clark County races appear to have been settled, however:

o For county assessor, Peter Van Nortwick’s lead over David Horowitz grew to nearly 1,700 votes. Van Nortwick, a Republican, now leads by 2 full percentage points in his bid to take on Janet Seekins, a Democrat, in the November general election.

o For the Clark Public Utilities commission seat, Mike Lyons extended his lead over Robert Nichols to 274 votes, up from 71 votes on election night. Lyons would take on three-term incumbent Nancy Barnes in November, should his lead hold.

Howard Buck: 360-735-4515 or howard.buck@columbian.com.