Bond Failure Puts Squeeze On District Deer Park Faces Crowding In Wake Of Election Defeat

Deer Park voters passed a bond four years ago that was supposed to be the first in a series of three to improve schools.

So it was only natural that school officials were optimistic that part two of the sequel would win at the polls last month.

But it didn’t, and now they’re scrambling to figure out what to do next.

“We feel like we can handle the crowding this coming year,” said Deer Park School District Superintendent Glenys Hill. “But after that we’re going to have to look at moving programs into libraries and computer rooms as well as looking at dropping programs,” she said.

The May 18 bond needed a 60 percent yes vote for validation. Unofficially it received a 55 percent yes vote. It drew 725 votes for and 593 against.

Election officials are still counting absentee ballots.

It was a 1995 bond that led to the renovation of Arcadia Elementary and Deer Park Middle schools.

Tax rates for this year’s bond would have increased $1.02 per $1,000 of assessed valuation for the year 2000. Current tax rates for the 1995 bond are expected to be $1.51 this year.

The bond would have accommodated the district’s expected continued enrollment growth. A new elementary school and an addition to Deer Park High School were planned.

She said district officials will meet soon to discuss alternative plans. A third bond is scheduled for 2003.

“It was really disappointing,” Hill said. “It completely throws the plan back. It’s the citizens who have to figure out where we go now.”

Hill said district officials are eager to see what the final voting results are in each district’s polling station.

She said there has been speculation that the district’s Stevens County voters in the Williams Valley and Clayton communities may have voted against the bond measure because they didn’t want to see their taxes increase.

Voters in those communities make up one-third of the residents in the Deer Park School District, Hill said.

Still, Hill said she didn’t hear any opposition from voters before the election.

“We don’t have any reason to believe that they don’t like the proposal,” she said. “In this community, if someone doesn’t like something you hear about it.”