WENATCHEE, Wash. — The Wenatchee School Board will meet in the coming weeks to discuss what happens next after the $120 million bond proposal to remodel and expand Wenatchee High School failed last week to meet the 60% approval threshold.
The measure fell short with 57% voter approval.
There aren't any immediate plans or ideas of how to move forward, said Wenatchee School District Superintendent Brian Flones. The school board, he said, will take up the matter sometime during the next couple of board meetings.
"We haven't had a chance to coordinate any sort of debrief," Flones said earlier this week.
It took 18 months to fully develop the bond proposal and fine-tune it, said Kris Cameron, who serves on the district's Citizens Facility and Bond committees.
"It was a really long process, and we looked at every possibility," said Cameron, president of the Wenatchee Education Association. "The federal building got surplussed and we looked at maybe purchasing that. We looked at taking over Pioneer Middle School as part of the high school and then building a second middle school. We looked at multiple different options."
Every option that was looked into required updating Wenatchee High School, she said. The bond committee couldn't figure out how the district could purchase, or build, a new school building on top of having to pay for the existing school's upgrades.
"The final plan that we put before the voters was, we felt, the best use of our limited resources," said Cameron. "It got us the most expansion and it got us the remodeling and upgrading that was needed."
As to what the timing would look like should the bond committee choose to rerun the bond, Cameron believes it could be a challenge to run it again before citizens see an expected reduction in their property tax bill next year.
"Personally, I feel undaunted," said Cameron. "I think that we just didn't get the right information out to the right people and we have to try again."
Wenatchee School Board President Michele Sandberg said the board will listen to public feedback on the failed bond measure and consider changes.
Sandberg said she was not involved in the beginning stages of the bond proposal, having been elected to the school board in November. Now, she looks forward to being involved as a school board member.
"It'll be exciting to kind of see it from a different perspective," she said.
John McQuaig, chairman of the school bond committee, believes that the costs involved with the bond could be looked into further so that the use of the money can be explained more clearly to voters.
"Overall, I really felt like this was the best solution for the district and for the high school," said McQuaig. "It seemed like a reasonable solution as far as the total cost and utilization of the space for what we end up with."
As the state's McCleary tax decreases next year, McQuaig hopes that will also encourage voters to be in favor of the bond if it's put on the ballot again.
"People felt the increase in property tax this year, but it was a one-year deal," said McQuaig.
McQuaig sees the fact that the bond received 57 percent approval as a good sign that so many people in the community truly do want to see changes happen at the high school.
"It clearly needs to happen," said McQuaig. "It feels good that we got really close to passing it."
