MARYSVILLE – A second attempt to pass a $171 million bond measure to build and renovate schools in Marysville was too close to call in late election returns Tuesday night.
The measure needed a 60 percent yes vote and was less than 2 percentage points below that in the late election night returns.
Bond backers were predicting another close outcome.
“It’s like deja vu all over again,” George Dragich, co-chairman of the pro-bond Citizens for Marysville Schools, said as he watched the returns.
“It’s too close to call,” Superintendent Larry Nyland said.
The proposal fell 154 votes shy in May, with a 58.8 percent yes vote. On Tuesday, it had nearly the same percentage of yes votes after early absentees were counted, but was slightly ahead of the May count with votes at the polls.
Late-arriving absentees could push it close to the 60 percent mark in the next few days, Nyland said.
Snohomish County elections supervisor Carolyn Diepenbrock said about 11,500 absentees remain to be counted, but she didn’t know how many were in the Marysville School District.
Citizens for Marysville Schools urged the school board to stay with the $171 million measure because it was so close last time. The group was hoping its efforts with poll voters would pay off.
Volunteers made nearly 3,500 phone calls in recent days to residents in precincts that had voted favorably in May. Another 1,200 phone calls were made to parents of school-age children.
Volunteers began registering voters in August in new housing developments, and knocked on hundreds of doors on recent weekends. Saturday and Sunday, for example, they rang nearly 1,800 doorbells.
The Tulalip Tribes staged a rally to support the bonds Monday and drove elders to the polls in vans and limousines on Tuesday.
Classroom space has become a premium on many campuses in the district, which uses 117 portable classrooms. Among other things, the bond measure would finance construction of a second high school for 1,600 students, renovate Marysville-Pilchuck High School, add a new elementary school and replace Cascade and Liberty elementary schools.
Marysville-Pilchuck, which was built for 1,850 students, is one of the largest high schools in the state, with 2,460 students. Another 425 ninth-graders are at Marysville Junior High School because the high school doesn’t have room. The high school’s enrollment could reach 3,000 in the next five years, according to some enrollment projections.
The new high school would be built on Getchell Hill. The new elementary school would be built in either the south end of the district or on land between Allen Creek and Kellogg Marsh elementary schools.
The bond would cost $1.32 per $1,000 of assessed property value. That would add $264 a year, or $22 a month, to property taxes on a $200,000 home.
The bond measure would qualify the district for $52 million in state matching money for future construction projects.
If the measure fails, the district would have to wait until next year to try again. Marysville hasn’t passed a school bond in 15 years, the longest period of any district in Snohomish County.
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