Voters say NO

Bond shot down: sixth measure attempt fails

After months of campaigning and fundraising by supporters, the $125 million general obligation bond to support Mt. Hood Community College was rejected by voters in Oregon’s May 17 election.

Initial vote counts released by the Multnomah and Clackamas county elections offices (the Mt. Hood district straddles both counties) showed the bond measure losing, about 57 percent to 43 percent.

Following updated ballot counts through Thursday, that margin hasn’t changed much.

MHCC officials and boosters gathered Tuesday night at the Riverside Restaurant in Troutdale to celebrate their bond efforts and to follow updates of voting results. Disappointment quickly replaced anticipation as a shared sentiment among those attending.

“I haven’t been this nervous since I applied for the job at Mt. Hood,” said school President Debbie Derr before results were displayed on a projector. High hopes were held as the results were being updated.

Then came the first news, and initial reaction.

“They start counting the votes that come in first. We had a lot of votes coming in late, like today, late,” said Derr, still holding out hope.

Efforts toward securing a bond for the college haven’t been made since 2006, and the last bond that passed was 42 years ago, in 1974.

“School bonds often start down, conservative voters and folks who tend to say ‘no’ to funding are early voters typically,” said Paige Richardson, a consultant hired to assist with campaigning.

“We knew this was gonna be challenging because the polling had us below at 50 percent, and it’s not that voters don’t love the college, it’s just there’s a lot of income insecurity in the district that Mt. Hood serves.”

A winning vote would have given MHCC money to build a new Workforce and Applied Technology Center on the campus, build a brand-new Maywood Park campus, upgrade seismic and safety features and pay off an estimated $27 million in current debt.

Mt. Hood District board chairwoman Susie Jones expressed brief optimism at the early results, also wishing for a turnaround.

“It’s disappointing, but it’s early… so I’m still very hopeful,” Jones said. If not… “Well, it certainly wasn’t lack of effort. Everybody stepped up, from the staff, from the community, from the board; all players stepped up to work together as a team to make this (campaign) happen.”

More than $200,000 was raised and spent on the bond campaign in the last six months, which included phone banking, door-to-door canvasing, social media contacts and even some advertising on the Pandora music streaming outlet.

Yet, that wasn’t quite enough.

Asked why she thought the bond measure might have failed, Jones said yet more outreach by bond supporters was needed.

“My gut instinct is that it’s all about personal contact. We needed to touch more of the voters personally through a phone conversation or a direct conversation,” said Jones.