Sunday, March 6, 2011

A civics lesson . . .

Vote Ring by Renee Francis

One need look no further away for a lesson on the importance of voting than our neighbors in the Snoqualmie Valley School District.  A February 8th bond election failed to meet the 60% requirement with a 59.99% yes vote.  Basically, if one of the no votes had been yes it would have made the super majority requirement.  Or, if two or three potential yes voters who forgot to vote or didn't think they needed to had returned their ballots in it would have passed.

Members of the community came forward to pay for a hand recount last Thursday with an announcement by the canvassing board expected on Friday.  That timeline was not met as we see from this announcement on the district's web site that there are still three ballots in question.  The board is scheduled to meet again on Tuesday with no date set for their decision.  We can only hope that the results are favorable for our friends in Snoqualmie.  We have a great working relationship with them in multiple areas such as the Center for Collaborative Support and wish them well as they wait for this critical decision.

As we approach our April bond measure we must keep this result in front of us; every potential vote does matter.  For us, this is especially true for our parents where in last spring's election only about 2500 of the registered 6000 parent voters submitted a ballot.  There are also about 3000 additional parents who are not registered, but can still make the timeline for registering for this important election.

As I think about the Snoqualmie election and the study that will follow this close vote, I wouldn't want to be the staff member who forgot to vote.

GOOD LUCK SNOQUALMIE!

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