Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Lex Anteinternet: Why did the bond issue fail?

Yesterday the County's voters approved both the Optional One Cent Tax and the Lodging Tax, leading me to wonder once again about the topic raised here:
Lex Anteinternet: Why did the bond issue fail?: I can't ever recall a school bond issue failing here before, like the one that did yesterday, and it was only last year that the voters...
I really wonder, as the forces that seemed lined up against the School Bond also seemed lined up against the One Cent Tax.

Perhaps they were, and they shot their bolt with the Bond.  Of note, at the time of the Bond election local Tea Party elements were particularly active and seemed particularly strong, but in the later Primary and General elections, they really fell flat.

More probably, however, the strategy of holding a separate bond election was a bad one. The City wanted the District to do it, as they feared that if the Bond election was unpopular it would take the One Cent down with it, but what more likely probably occurred is that the elements opposed to any taxation or in the Tea Party camp in general were motivated to go tot he special bond election, which most people aren't  It didn't fail by much.

General elections here, however, get good turnout.  Chances are, I suspect, that if the Bond had been in the General election, it would have passed.

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