School levy passes in a landslide

The $995,000 La Conner Schools levy was headed for a big win on Tuesday, with the initial ballot count showing nearly 61 percent “yes” votes.

This was the second try this year for La Conner School District to receive voter approval for an operating levy. In February voters rejected a pair of school levies that would have imposed nearly $1.5 million in property taxes homeowners.

On Tuesday only ballots on hand before the election boxes closed at 8 p.m. were counted and there were already hundreds more ballots cast than in the February election.

With a voter turnout of more than 52 percent, the count on Tuesday was 1,124 “Yes” to 729 “No.” The ballots mailed and dropped off Tuesday will be counted today, Wednesday. The final count and official results will be certified on May 6.

This time there was a vigorous “Yes” campaign featuring dozens of “Vote Yes” signs – most prominent on the Swinomish Reservation – as well as door hangers and newspaper and online advertisements.

Also, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community encouraged people to vote with a voting party and prizes.

At least 53 percent of the 3,548 registered voters in the La Conner School District live on land that cannot be taxed by the district. The tax disparity was the main reason the levy failed in February – in 2015 the County Assessor took 931 parcels off the school district’s tax rolls after a federal court decreed that homes built on leased tribal land could not be assessed personal property tax by the state or county.

That shifted the tax burden to around 1,200 individual taxpayers left on about 2,500 taxable parcels, much of it farmland. The two-year school levy floated in February became a target in a local tax revolt because some people saw their property tax bills rise by more than 20 percent.

But this time, the “Yes” votes won in every precinct, including all the neighborhoods where the people who will pay this levy live.

Many taxpayers said they changed their votes from “no” last time to “yes” this time because they felt the school district listened to them by seeking a smaller levy for just one year instead of two.

The levy, which will account for about 10 percent of the school’s operating budget, will take effect in 2017.