A post-mortem: MHCC bond in retrospect

When they awoke on election day, May 17, Mt. Hood leaders and supporters hoped the $125 million MHCC bond measure for new construction and facility improvements, which the state of Oregon would have matched with an additional $8 million, would be passed by voters in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas and Hood River counties.

Instead, they headed for bed wondering, what’s next? And we at the Advocate join them.

If you have not heard about MHCC’s general obligation bond by now, the Advocate’s not sure where you’ve been, because we’ve been talking about it since last year.

If the bond measure were to have passed, the money would’ve gone towards a new Workforce and Applied Technology Center on the Gresham campus, a completely rebuilt and expanded Maywood Park campus, important facility repairs and other needed educational-related support.

Setting the bond measure effort motion last winter, MHCC’s Board of directors didn’t want to sound overly optimistic, but they were certainly enthusiastic. Members would go on to support the bond to the best of their ability – even if board members Michael Calcagno and Sonny Yellott did warn they thought it was too soon to pursue a bond measure in May, given only a half-year to raise money and launch a successful outreach campaign.

Obviously, the board wanted to think strategically, since $8 million was on the line from the state (to be withdrawn if a bond measure didn’t succeed by 2016). And, there was early opinion polling organized by MHCC’s hired campaign consultant, Paige Richardson, to see which voter groups in the district might vote for, or vote against, a bond measure – plus an “undecided” voter category.

Looking at those early polling results, slightly more voters voiced support of the college’s effort, the board was told. The Mt. Hood community viewed the college mostly favorably, in any case, Richardson said.

The goal for the board was to aim towards those who already said “yes” on a bond attempt and to keep them there, and move additional undecided  voters to “yes.”

It seemed to make sense to make sure to affirm the positive-minded votes, by May.

But it also raised the question: What was the extent of marketing aimed at the “undecided” voters? And why was there no marketing towards “no” voters in order to change their decision? Why not at least some attempt to change their minds?

Raising awareness for a bond measure among the community that already supports Mt. Hood is an obvious step, and is just what the supporters did. But spending more time and effort to sway “undecided” and “no” voters would probably have been a more productive way to gain crucial “yes” votes, we believe.

When speaking to The Advocate, MHCC President Debbie Derr admitted the board and bond committee knew that there were a lot of undecided voters who weren’t convinced. “…We knew that there were a lot of undecided people and we didn’t move them to be ‘yes’ voters, and so to focus more the next time, perhaps on those undecided voters might be a strategy,” she told us.

Derr went on to say the college and its strategists wouldn’t know the exact demographic breakdown of voters and votes until sometime next month. Bruce Battle, MHCC director of marketing, agreed on the search for more specifics. “That’ll be an important part of taking a look at that and assessing… just digging into those numbers and that data and helping us steer the path,” he said.

At this point, Derr and Battle say they are determined to try again for the bond, but not for another year or so.

We noticed another significant problem in the May 17 voting results.

While the final margin in Mt. Hood’s service district within Multnomah County was relatively close – nearly 59,000 voters rejected the bond measure, 52.7 percent to 47.3 percent – the opposition was huge in Clackamas County.

In fact, the nearly 4,000-vote margin of a 67 percent to 33 percent “no” vote in Clackamas County (among nearly 12,000 voters) surpassed the margin in Multnomah County.

Which made us think: “They went door to door to talk to residents, pass out fliers and convince people… but did they go all the way out to Clackamas County?”

We think more effort should go toward marketing for the bond. Not just through knocking on doors or making telephone calls, but through ads in newspaper, on the web, and signs posted in downtown areas, campaign events hosted in the park, and new fliers, with information on how the bond could help our college sent out to many more residents.

When we asked, “Did you guys do enough?” Battle said he believed the school did and that it got it to the point where the voting landscape was “pretty saturated.

“I don’t think there were many encounters where people hadn’t heard about the bond… (but) If voters are going to vote “no,” there’s not a lot you can do to sway them.”

As for us, we don’t believe the bond actually grew to become a hot topic in the community, and question “how many people really do know about it?”

In the final analysis, the editorial staff agrees the college should start campaigning for another bond as soon as possible.

Raising money, and like Derr said, continuing being engaged with the community, is important to keep the “yes” voters, but more effort should be made to sway undecided voters and to at least get a share of “no” voters to consider Mt. Hood’s benefit to them.