Hey, Bet You Didn’t Know, There’s An Election on March 3

Over at his blog, Rep. Marv Hagedorn (R-20) posts about a bond election scheduled in the Meridian School District:

I just received an email from one of our Meridian neighbors asking me about the school bond election on March 3rd. I had to say, I had no idea that there was going to be a bond election and needed to do some research.

Below is the announcement of the Levy Election that will be held a week from today. I do not know how else this has been published, but thought it would be good to let my readers know. I would suggest that if you have questions, call the District offices at 855-4500.

Rep. Hagedorn has the details on the bond issues. This is ultimately what galls me about our local tax and borrowing elections. They’re held with little notice, little debate, so that even a well-informed person, active in his community doesn’t know what’s going on with issues that will impact him for years to come in big ways and small. Your average citizen doesn’t know about it, but I’ll bet you dollars to donuts, the local teacher’s union knows as do the political friends of board of trustee members.

This is one of my big concerns about Rep. Durst’s local option bill. It does allow local option elections to be called at odd times of the year when your average citizen doesn’t know the voting is occurring. True enough, Durst sets a higher threshold for elections held outside of November elections in even numbered years (2/3 for elections held at others, 60% for elections held in November of even-numbered years.) but the idea that 2/3 of 5% of the population that knows an election is going on could raise taxes on the rest of the population is an incredibly alarming prospect.