Voters nix bond request

Voters turned down a $5.5 million bond request from the Sisters School District that would have added eight classrooms to the elementary school, remodeled the old intermediate school for seventh and eighth graders, funded fencing, field irrigation, school labs and maintenance projects.

According to Deschutes County Clerk Susie Penhollow, the Sisters school bond was defeated by a vote of 1,087 in favor to 1200 opposed, or 48 percent yes against 52 percent no.

School board chairman Bill Reed was disappointed by the close defeat. Reed did not feel the district carried its message very well to the voters, and had "58 voted the other way," the bond would have passed.

"We are still receiving feedback from voters. Some did not understand all the facts we are dealing with," Reed said.

The district failed to communicate that the bond proposed was "in fact the most economical way to solve our growth problems in both the short and long term," Reed said.

Former school board member Clifton Clemens voted no on the bond, and in the "Letters to the Editor" section of The Nugget, said he was doing so because the elementary expansion would compound "problems of crowded classrooms, traffic danger, limited playground area and future community planning."

In his letter, Clemens advocated year-round school. He also feels that portable classrooms could be used if needed at the elementary school. As to the space crunch at the high school, Clemens said the building was supposed to have been designed for 600 students, with the potential to accommodate another 600 as growth required.

Clemens, who was on the board when the new school was being designed, said while "getting 1,200 into the high school might be optimistic," he felt that adding on to the high school for enrollment there of 1,000 was quite feasible.

School bond opponent Howard Paine also wrote that the district should consider year-round school instead of going out for a bond.

Actually, the two long-range planning committees that reviewed all these options also felt that year-round school was the best long-term option at the elementary school, but required addition of the eight classrooms. Year round school would not be feasible at the high school at the current enrollment.

The committee also determined that expansion of the elementary school and transfer of intermediate students in grades seven and eight out of the high school had additional benefits, including not having to add classrooms to that building at this time.

Adding classrooms would not solve problems with gyms and a cafeteria also at capacity, according to high school principal Dennis Dempsey.

Long Range Planning Committee Chairperson Leslee Bangs said she felt too little was done to educate the community about the need for the bond.

"In these times of intense fiscal scrutiny by taxpayers, it is not enough to assume that the voters will simply go along with educational bond measure simply because they are placed on the ballot," Bangs wrote in an opinion column in this week's Nugget (see page 2).

"There were no lawn signs, there wasn't even a banner at the school," Bangs also said of the election effort.

Chairman Reed said the school board will soon make a decision about what do in the face of the defeat. "The problem still exists ... and we have to decide whether we need to do a better job of informing the voters and getting them to reconsider the current proposal or modifying the proposal," Reed said.

That the bond was defeated by such a narrow margin and there was so much misinformation in the community makes this a difficult decision, Reed said.

The vote may have been close, but 60 percent of the 3,806 ballots mailed to registered voters within the Sisters School District were returned and tabulated.

County Clerk Penhollow said that 237 voters used the drop site at Sisters City Hall before the November 7 deadline.

Cloverdale's Precinct 14 voted 315 yes, 392 no. Precinct 15, which includes the area west of Sisters and encompasses Crossroads and Tollgate voted 258 yes, 207 no. Precinct 30, the City of Sisters , had 131 yes votes to 147 opposed. Precinct 51, Black Butte Ranch, voted 100 yes 136 no. In Precinct 58, which includes Indian Ford and the area east of Sisters toward Cloverdale, there were 283 yes votes to 318 no votes.