43
Beaver, Lakeview voters pass levies
“All’s well that ends well,” Columbiana County Elections Board Chairman David Johnson said Tuesday night.
A special election showed that voters in the Beaver School District approved a levy renewal despite a precinct location mix-up that could have impacted the vote.
The complete but unofficial vote was 998 in favor, 669 against.
Similar results were achieved in Trumbull County’s Lakeview district, where a 3.15-mill renewal earned a 63.56 percent yes vote, according to the Trumbull elections board.
In the Beaver district, Superintendent Sandi DiBacco stressed before the special election that there would be no new taxes.
DiBacco could not be reached for comment after the win Tuesday night.
The 5.3-mill levy provides $1.2 million a year. It has been in place since 1994 and was renewed in 1999 and 2004.
The district will pay about $5,000 for the special election.
The board of elections received a notice Jan. 27 from Rogers officials that they moved the voting place from the old village hall to the new one.
Johnson said the new building was about a block away from the old one.
Elections Director Kim Meek said early Tuesday she was contacting news organizations to alert voters to the change.
The Rogers precinct involved in the move, Northeast, has 850 voters. The district has about 9,000 voters.
Kevin Kidder, a spokesperson for the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, said the elections board, “found itself in an unfortunate and extreme circumstance that caused the change of polling location. Despite being notified only last week of the change, the board put notice of the change in the newspaper, got word to radio stations about the change and they made sure signs were at the old polling location directing voters to the new location.”
Kidder also said the secretary of state’s office will review what happened and will follow up with village officials to prevent similar events from happening in the future.
In the Lakeview district, the renewal will raise $890,000 each year for five years.
Superintendent Robert Wilson said he’s thrilled with the outcome, especially in light of recent announced cuts at the state level.
“I think our community really rallied around our students,” he said. “I was cautiously optimistic, and I was very pleasantly surprised that the margin of victory was as wide as it was.”
Wilson said he cannot thank enough those who recognized the district’s need, even during an economic downturn.
“Now we have to seek input from our community to see where they want our school district to go from here,” he said.
Despite Tuesday’s outcome, the district isn’t through facing financial difficulties, Wilson said.
“We still do need new money, but we need to sit back and evaluate the news from Columbus,” he said. “It’s going to take us some time to evaluate exactly what’s coming in terms of mandates and what’s being funded and what’s not being funded.”