With all 37 precincts reporting, more than 68 percent of voters said "yes" to Measure A, a $112-per-parcel tax to help high schools in the state-budget-stricken Acalanes Union High School District save teachers' jobs and core academic and elective programs.
A few hours after polls closed, the Contra Costa County Elections office reports that 68.5 percent of voters said yes in the special mail-in ballot. The measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass.
County election officials told the Contra Costa Times that ballots counted as of 8 p.m. Tuesday did not reflect ballots that had been delivered to the office Tuesday. Elections officials said they would begin counting uncounted ballots Wedesday and come up with the final tally Friday.
Measure A would bring in to the school district about $3.8 million a year over the next five years. The district is facing a $4.8 million shortfall. The district already has a $189 parcel tax that voters decided to extend indefinitely in November.
A few hours after polls closed, the Contra Costa County Elections office reports that 68.5 percent of voters said yes in the special mail-in ballot. The measure needs a two-thirds majority to pass.
County election officials told the Contra Costa Times that ballots counted as of 8 p.m. Tuesday did not reflect ballots that had been delivered to the office Tuesday. Elections officials said they would begin counting uncounted ballots Wedesday and come up with the final tally Friday.
Measure A would bring in to the school district about $3.8 million a year over the next five years. The district is facing a $4.8 million shortfall. The district already has a $189 parcel tax that voters decided to extend indefinitely in November.
NOTE: Well, it looks like my Crazy poll, which you can still see at left, was pretty close and a pretty good crystal ball. When I finally, with the help of a reader, did the calculations correct, my poll said that Measure A would pass with 69.5 percent of the vote. That's just a point off what the yes vote was, calculated by the county Elections Department.
11 comments:
It'll pass cuz, as the campaign to tax again planned, most people won't bother to walk a "no" vote in on Tuesday. It was all about getting the yes votes mobilized and hoping most negative feeling voters just wouldn't vote when this was the only thing on the mail in only ballot.
I am all for keeping the excellence of the district, I just wish they'd made it an emergency 2 year tax and explained what would have been lost in actual program and not just jobs. And suggested ways they could in fact, in these challenged times, cut back some. Everything and everyone is cutting back.
I feel super duped that we voted in an in-perpetuity tax in November, just to be hit up again months later. It was clearly their plan all along and I no longer trust them at all. They knew after November that they were coming back again immediately. It's a good thing they won't have to come back for the ask for a while now. Or maybe there will be another emergency measure in November. And we can pay $5,000/ year a parcel in K-8 and high school parcel taxes and bond expenses.
Maybe I'll forget and forgive the deception in five years.
Meanwhile, better pray the elderly, the homeless, the mentally ill, the decaying roads, and criminally violated all have resources and parcel taxes that will come save their programs and our morality.
I hope that these numbers hold up!
Wow, the school district did not see the massive budget cuts from Sacramento coming? Shame on them. I wouldn't trust them either now. And lets not trust the people who care for the mentally ill, the people who repair our roads or the people who are criminally violated either. They all should have known and asked us for more back in November!
I have a 3rd grader, and sure hope these numbers stand and that measure A is passed. This money is absolutely necessary to insure quality education for our children. It is unfortunate that the money came from citizens, not Sacramento. That being said, WAY TO GO! My daughter and her classmates thank all the yes voters.
If they had put both measures on the ballot last November, neither would have passed. Orinda, Lafayette and Moraga elementary parcel taxes were already on no-sunset. It only made sense that the Walnut Creek and Acalanes parcel taxes followed suit. They had no choice but to put it on two elections. Anyone opposed has no idea of the magnitude the cuts would have been and the detrimental impact on the education Acalanes provides. It is after all the excellence of our school districts which keep our property values higher. So, in addition to this nominal per parcel investment in our high schools, also consider it an investment into your home.
Who is more the fool? The fool or the fools who follow?
4:23,
Or the teabagger trying to be cute?
"Or the teabagger trying to be cute?"
Or the person using obscene language on this blog.
Hope you all love teachers pension's - that's what you paid for.
Kids and education wouldn't have succumbed to horror if leadership became a once a week or after school club. All could live without $100 per yearbook remembrance.
Really folks, they weren't gonna stop teaching math, science, english, foreign languages, drama, music or history. They just weren't going to offer students 3 science AP courses at once, or AP art or the option for 2-3 music classes in single year.
Go check it out.
If they'd said they were helping struggling students that would be interesting, but this was more about the ongoing elite.
That's okay. That's who we are. Accept it, embrace it, and be honest about protecting your property values and turning your backs on the genuinely struggling among you.
Nothing against the kids, but how do you plan to close the gap?
For shame!
Please don't call yourself the elite. You are far from elite. I'd love to "check it out". Where do you suggest I go to check out your outlandish "facts". I'm a teacher in the district and nothing you state is true, just hateful. Our pensions did not go up. they went down, when our union volunteered and accepted a $2100 pay cut. Educate yourself and come help us perpetuate the "best in the state" honor that we have achieved and don't want to lose.
6:33,
No one wrote anything obscene on this thread.
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