Fairfax voters reaffirmed their assist Tuesday for a long-debated proposal to spend as much as $36.4 million on renovations and new building on the city’s Okay-12 college.
A bond to fund the slate of initiatives at Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax handed narrowly — by simply 33 votes — on Election Day final fall. However a number of residents then organized petitions, garnering about 200 whole signatures, to place the bond up for a vote once more, in keeping with Scott Mitchell, who chairs the Fairfax Faculty District board.
Mitchell stated some residents wished to have one other vote as a result of they didn’t suppose the district adequately knowledgeable voters concerning the bond the primary time. The bond article wasn’t on the ballots that have been mailed mechanically to city residents final fall — voters needed to request a separate poll, or they may vote on the bond in individual on Election Day.
Tuesday’s vote handed by a wider margin than the primary go-around, with 946 residents supporting the bond and 880 opposing it, in keeping with unofficial outcomes Tuesday evening. General, extra individuals voted this time with 1,826 voters in contrast with 1,671 voters final November.
“We transfer ahead from right here and admire the belief from the general public in assist of the Faculty,” Mitchell wrote in a textual content message after outcomes have been revealed Tuesday.
The bond is about so as to add 5 lecture rooms to the varsity’s elementary wing, two of them for pre-Okay college students and three of them for third- and fourth-graders. 4 new lecture rooms additionally could be added for center and excessive schoolers.
The bond additionally consists of renovated areas for science, band and refrain lessons; an enlarged cafeteria; new space for storing for co-curricular actions; and new security measures, similar to a hearth sprinkler system, upgraded elevators and a safer entrance for center and highschool college students.
Faculty officers have stated for years that main updates to Bellows Free Academy-Fairfax are badly wanted, and that they’re operating out of area within the constructing amid rising enrollment, particularly amongst elementary-age college students.
However getting voters to agree has confirmed to be a problem. Related bond proposals in 2017 and 2019 each failed, although they included some big-ticket gadgets — together with an auditorium or a brand new gymnasium — that the newest bond doesn’t.
The district has estimated that this 12 months’s 30-year bond would add $389 to the annual tax invoice on a $200,000 house.
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