School bond falls short again

Published 9:00 pm Monday, September 26, 2005

The latest count of absentee ballots Monday from the primary election was no help to the Marysville school bond measure and did nothing to change the Lynnwood mayor’s race.

With few ballots remaining to be counted countywide, the $171 million bond to build new Marysville schools was falling more than one and a half percentage points short of the 60 percent “yes” vote it needs to pass.

In Lynnwood, Mayor Mike McKinnon was on his way to winning the right to run for a second term in November against City Council member Don Gough.

About 150 to 200 absentee ballots were counted Monday, said Wendy Mauch, election supervisor for the county auditor’s office. The only ballots remaining are those that need to be rechecked for signatures, for example, or those that the machine could not read the first time through, she said. Primary election results will be declared final Thursday.

“It’s just going to be little tiny stuff from here on out,” Mauch said.

In Marysville, the margin of failure for the bond measure widened slightly from an identical proposal that failed in May.

The tally Monday was 8,102 “yes” to 5,727 “no” votes, 58.59 percent approval. Voter turnout was 5 percent higher than the May election, when the proposal received a 58.82 percent approval.

“It came close,” Marysville Superintendent Larry Nyland said Monday night. “I’m disappointed we didn’t get there. It would be nice to put energy into getting the new buildings that are needed for our school and community.”

Nyland added school officials will have to decide what to do next regarding a future bond. They also will need to figure out what to do with all the students until a measure does pass.

“We’ll take some time to look at what the lessons of this last election were and make some decisions,” he said.

The bond would have financed construction of a second high school for 1,600 students, renovated Marysville-Pilchuck High, added a new elementary school and replaced Cascade and Liberty elementary schools.

Marysville hasn’t passed a bond measure in 15 years, the longest period of any Snohomish County school district.

McKinnon, who on Friday widened what had been a narrow lead over council member Jim Smith for the second spot, remained ahead of Smith by 71 votes, 1,464 to 1,393, after Monday’s count. Gough led the field with 1,530, with first-time candidate Bill Vance behind.

With Gough leading by only 66 votes, “essentially we’re starting off even (in the general election), and it’s going to be a cat fight for the next seven weeks,” McKinnon said Monday evening. “I’m prepared to run a strong, positive campaign.”

Smith, an 18-year council veteran who has run for mayor twice before, had resigned himself to the apparent outcome.

“We’re not expecting a silver bullet or a miracle to take place,” Smith said. “We ran a very clean campaign like I always have. We were not victorious, and that’s that.”