Two bond measures from Pullman, Wash.'s Nov. 7 ballot narrowly passed validation Tuesday following a final count and certification of the results.
According to state law, for a bond measure to be valid, voter turnout must equal or exceed 40 percent of the turnout for the previous general election. Whitman County Auditor Eunice Coker said Pullman needed a turnout of at least 3,854. Both bonds fell short of that number by less than 100 votes, but City Attorney Laura McAloon discovered there's another way forward.
"When you have a proposition that has less than 40 percent turnout of voters voting on the proposition, then you apply an alternative test that says it still passes if you have 'yes' folks that are equal to 60 percent of that 40 percent number," McAloon said.
That means Pullman needed a minimum of 2,312.4 "yes" votes - a benchmark both bonds exceeded.
"They showed 2,410 voting in favor on Prop. 1 and 2,783 voting in favor of Prop. 2," McAloon said.
With both bonds confirmed and slated to take effect next year, city officials say their work is just beginning. Proposition 2 is a 10-year, $2.4 million replacement bond funding continuous improvements to Pullman's parks and paths, and is representative of little change to city operations or taxpayer burden. The heftier Proposition 1 is set to expire over 20 years, and it has several costly features. Chiefly, the $10.5 million bond is meant to pay for the acquisition and conversion of the Encounter Ministries campus into a new city hall, recreation center and senior center, but there are smaller projects included in the bond. Aside from the primary project, City Supervisor Adam Lincoln said Monday the bond allocates $800,000 for a new Lawson Gardens Event Center, and $500,000 to secure a location for a new fire station.
"It's not a fire station, it will just be the property for a future fire station," Lincoln said. "We'll probably have to do some sort of a study in the next year or two to determine what the best location would be for a future fire station."
Lincoln said this leaves $3.5 million to purchase the Encounter Ministries campus, and $5.5 million for renovations. Lincoln said this would likely be the first part of the bond the city will address.
"The church property would be probably the highest priority as far as what we take on with staff allocation of time," Lincoln said.
Lincoln estimated it would take about a year to get the recreation center up and running and around 18 months to set up the church as a new city hall.
"Those two would happen as closely as we could have them happen at the same time," Lincoln said. "Just because there's probably economies of scale that come into play when you're doing a remodel on the same property."
