Williston ARC, ND (KEYZ)  Sitting along side members of the board in the dimly lit, and empty ARC tennis courts arena shortly after 8 pm, a satisfying quiet optimism swept over the District One Board members and Superintendent, only to be shattered when the chief tabulator consulted with group, her eyes slightly wrinkled and red, her expression long and dark.  The mood immediately turned somber as the reality of the numbers melted away any remaining optimism.

The Williston public school district bond referendum failed it's third and final test unable to garner the needed 60% for both questions to pass according to preliminary figures.  The Bond received only slightly more than 57% and the increased levy just 58%.  Dr Jeffrey Thake, District Superintendent was crestfallen.  "Yeah, we wanted to wait until we had the final preliminary numbers before we decided to do anything else and right now it looks as though we are roughly 86 votes short from where we need to be," said Thake.

With watery, red eyes, as much from the past weeks worth of activity, as well from attempts to keep from crying School Board President Joanna Baltes was quite set back by the results.  "I'm surprised because our absentee ballots were really positive and we had a 70% range of yes votes.  We had heard in the past that the way the absentee votes go, the rest of the votes go, so we had a little bit of time there near the end of excited optimism, of actually, "maybe we are going to be able to pull this off,' " Baltes tells News Radio.

"We had a lot of people who came out to vote, but a lot more came out today to vote no," she adds.

Comparing today's turnout with that of January's where the Bond and Levy questions also failed to garner a 60% majority, 2200 people came out in January, compared to 3450 today.   Dr Thake and the rest of the board will now contemplate the district's next move, since they are forbidden by Century Code of holding another bond initiative for a year.  Baltes says they will be meeting in the coming days about that.

"We have always known we would have to come up with some sort of contingency plan if this one didn't pass and that's what we will be starting to discuss in detail over the next couple of days," she says.

In the end, both Baltes and Thake turned resolute and a bit defiant of the days outcome, pledging to keep the pressure on to make Williston Schools better for the coming generations.

"The fact is the community has got to come out and decide what it wants to do and probably by margins of something greater than 60% which is what we need to pass a vote.  If the community as a whole does not see the big picture in what we are trying to do, than we have not succeeded either," says Baltes.

Still well over 50% voted for the bond, which brought a smile to Thake in the end.  "I can not thank those individuals enough for coming out and exercising their right to vote, and their support of the Williston Public School District number one," he said.

"It doesn't make me feel good as superintendent that we are not going to be able to alleviate the overcrowding, we just need to continue to reevaluate what our options will be together with the building and grounds committee," said Thake.

 

 

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