In a decision that will surely shake the Marion County Board of Education, Harrison County residents emphatically rejected a 20-year school bond for $60 million that would have built 3 new schools and renovated 11 others throughout the county. When all 93 precincts were counted...4,454 voters were against the proposal and only 2,874 voted "yes".
I would venture to say a Marion County bond would face the same defeat if put before Marion County residents today. And, keep in mind, Marion County wants to attempt an $80 million bond, not a mere $60 million.
The Marion County bond proposal needs to be tweaked and sold immensely for it to even stand a chance. The recent admission by the board that consolidation would cost as much as building new schools needs to be emphasized greatly because most are under the impression that consolidation would solve all the school issues in Marion County. Unfortunately, only one news article was published about this recent discovery and the local paper has refused to back-off their insistence that the schools be consolidated.
Despite the fact I work in Clarksburg, I saw very little selling of the bond in Harrison County. Once Marion County has a definitive bond proposal on the table, they need to learn from Harrison County's mistakes and really emphasize the importance of this bond to the future of education in Marion County. I will be very interested to see what the Harrison defeat does to our local board.
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