Tahoma Levies – Day 4 Update
by Jenn Askew
Not much has changed with the new count released today. The Tech levy is now winning with a clearer margin of 262 votes, and the EP&O is still losing, albeit with a closer margin of 64 votes (vs 232 yesterday). At this point there are unlikely to be more than a few hundred ballots left to count, and the EP&O levy would have to receive a preponderance of Yes votes to pull ahead. The next ballot count will not be released until Tuesday, February 20th, due to the holiday on Monday.
Auburn’s levy is now winning with 257 (more than double yesterday) votes, as of the King County drop. The Pierce county ballot count won’t be released until later this hour, but has been trending favorably for the levy.
What’s Next?
Well, most of us are going on vacation or staycation for next week’s mid-winter/President’s Day break, and hopefully many of you are, too! We’ll keep an eye on things, but don’t really anticipate much movement on this. The EP&O vote is a nail-biter, and could go either way, but in the end it’s clear that many people in this community don’t understand or simply don’t value this levy. We need to work to change that. Whatever the faults of this district, in our opinions none are so dire as to warrant a 17% reduction in the budget, resulting in firing hundreds of people and reducing programs and services that will impact the students here more than anyone else.
As for what the school board and district will do to handle this potential loss, you can read my recap of yesterday’s school board work study here.
This article was written by a member of Tahoma Values with help from the rest of the team, and we are always looking for new article submissions! If there’s something you’d like to publish with us, send your submission to tahomavalues@gmail.com
