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Longview will wait to make decision on future school bond

By Marissa Heffernan, The Daily News
Published: November 17, 2019, 7:41pm

LONGVIEW — The Longview School District will put off discussion of a third facilities bond until after its February election for its operations and education levy.

“Our efforts right now need to be focused on having success with the levy request,” Superintendent Dan Zorn said at a school board meeting last week.

Still, the district is still trying to determine why the $119 million facilities bond failed in the Nov. 5 general election, getting 58 percent approval but about 200 votes shy of attaining the 60 percent supermajority needed for passage. The preliminary message from those with their ears to the ground: The bond simply had too big a price tag for this community.

Nevertheless, school officials were pleased they came close.

“If this were any other kind of election it would have been a landslide … but that’s the way it goes and we need to regroup,” Zorn said. “We still need to figure out long term ways to get those needs addressed, but we will figure it out after the levy.”

The bond got at least 60 percent approval in 12 of 32 voter precincts within school district boundaries. The measure failed to get even a simple majority in four precincts, all of them in West Longview and beyond: Bakers, Coal Creek, Ocean Beach and Stella.

Had the bond won even a simple majority in the Coal Creek and Stella precincts, the measure would have come within a whisker of passing.

The bond would have paid to replace Mint Valley and Northlake elementary schools, upgrade Longview Memorial Stadium and undertake safety improvements districtwide. It would have cost the owner of a $200,000 home $176 annually for 21 years.

The ballot measure was the second time the district has tried to pass nine-figure facilities bond. The $121 million bond it proposed in 2017 fell by a similar amount, even though the voter turnout for the bond election this year was nearly 30 percent greater. As they did this year, a simple majority of voters in the Stella and Coal Creek rejected the 2017 bond.

Summer O’Neill is the Democratic precinct captain for Coal Creek Precinct and chair of Cowlitz County Democrats. She said she has heard from the community that increasing property taxes are at the root of the bond’s failure.

“Particularly as property taxes have increased with the evaluation of our homes, it’s become a much tougher sell to get voters to voluntarily increase them some more,” O’Neill said.

She said incomes are stagnant, and she pointed out that the largest block of voters are retirees who likely are on a fixed income.

“They’re getting painted into a corner,” O’Neill said.

There’s also a general lack of awareness of the conditions in the schools, O’Neill said, but she said the bond was just too large.

“People aren’t conformable with the size and scope of the projects,” O’Neill said. “It makes sense from the school district’s perspective to do it all at once. … But it’s too much for our voters to take all at once.”

Scott Schill, the Republican precinct captain for Coal Creek Precinct, said he felt that the support was there, but the district didn’t get the word out well enough.

“I didn’t see any advertising about it or anything, or signs to support it, and I think that’s very important if you’re trying to get something to pass,” Schill said.

School board member Don Wiitala said Thursday that he thought the problem came down to communicating the district’s long term facility needs, especially since it’s been nearly 20 years since the district passed a facilities bond.

“In the mid-2000s, when the economy went in tank, there wasn’t much support and we didn’t want to go to the community that was hurting at the same time,” Wiitala said. “But the facilities kept wearing down and wearing out. Personally (this year’s failure) was somewhat frustrating because the feedback we were getting was very positive.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, the board decided to put the levy on the February ballot, though it has not yet decided on the amount, rate or the length of the levy. Another board workshop on the matter is scheduled for 6 p.m. today in the district office board room.

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