$50M Middle School Bond Passes!

The middle school passed on the first try with 76% voting YES, greatly exceeding the required 60%.  I had been pessimistic -- I need to remember that facebook isn't the actual world.  Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to persuade the voters.

Otherwise there were no surprises.  Congratulations to Denise Day and Michael Williams on their reelection to the board, Denise for her third three year term.

462 folks (15%) are so ornery or so clueless they voted to raise their own taxes 1.5% by voting NO on the school district budget.  Of course YES won so there is no consequence to their vote.

We had historic district turnout, with 3274 ORCSD ballots cast overall.  The last time over 3000 was that great day back in 2012 at 3106.  We got 1600 last year, 1100 the snowy year before that, 1800 before that.  Please see the end of this post for a summary of the last nine years of ORCSD voting.

There's no separation of the results by town. 1627 folks voted in Durham, 1220 in Lee and a rumored 400 in Madbury, probably more like 3274-1627-1220=427 assuming everyone turned in a ballot. I usually expect the pizza to have 7 slices, Durham:Lee:Madbury = 4:2:1 = 57%:29%:14%. We got 1627:1220:427, about 4:3:1 or 50%:37%:13%.  So turnout was up most in Lee.

Lee Results: The Town Center in Lee failed, getting 46% of the vote, falling short of the 60% needed. Write-in candidate Jon Moss gathered 14% of the votes for selectman, losing to incumbent Scott Bugbee.  Congratulations, Scott.  Tom Coakley was elected Library Trustee with 37 write-in votes.  Congratulations Tom.  Everything else passed, including infrared cameras, radios, zoning rules, Parish House...

Here are the unofficial ORCSD election results, thanks to Todd Selig (percentages are from me).

ARTICLE 1:  Moderator

Richard Laughton - 2684      ELECTED

ARTICLE 2:   School Board at Large (Vote for not more than two)

Denise Day         - 2488   ELECTED
Michael Williams - 2387   ELECTED

ARTICLE 3:

Shall the District raise and appropriate the sum of $49,847,732 (gross budget) to construct and equip a new middle school on the site of the current Oyster River Middle School, including new athletic fields and demolition of the Oyster River Middle School, (the "Project")...(3/5 Ballot vote required)

YES - 2467   76.0%  PASSED
NO    - 778    24.0%

ARTICLE 4:

Shall the District raise and appropriate as an operating budget, totaling $47,538,867...

YES - 2720  85.5%  PASSED
NO    - 462   14.5%

ARTICLE 5:

Shall the District vote to approve within the provisions of New Hampshire RSA 273-A:3
the cost items included in the collective bargaining agreement reached between the Oyster River Teachers Guild and the Oyster River School Board which calls for the following increases in salaries and benefits at the current staffing levels:  FY21 $627K, FY22 $772K, FY23 $701K, FY24 $702K, FY25 $709K...

YES - 2635  82.3%  PASSED
NO   -  568  17.7%

ORCSD Election History

I've compiled this from the election reports I've written since I started paying attention in 2012.  The '>' means I don't have a turnout number reported for that year so I used the maximum number of voters of any article.  There's usually around a 2% undervote so a better estimate would be to add 2% to those numbers.