Voters pass Wallowa school-improvement bond

Published 12:33 pm Wednesday, May 19, 2021

WALLOWA — Much-needed repairs are coming to the Wallowa School District.

The bond for school improvements and repairs was approved by Wallowa voters during the district election Tuesday, May 18, by a vote of 62.5% to 37.5%. Of the 752 voters who cast a ballot, 470 voted in favor of the $7 million bond. With the passage of the bond, the school will also receive a $4 million grant from the Oregon Department of Education.

“Wow. I was sitting there last night, my eyes glued to the screen, refreshing. I just found myself really overwhelmed, just a flood of emotions because of the support of the community,” Superintendent Tammy Jones said. “That is what drew me to this community in the first place — a strong community knowing what is important. … Very excited.”

She said, in fact, it was community discussion two years ago that ultimately led to this bond coming to fruition.

“Everything started with a community conversation,” she said. “Back in 2019, the community came together, and really was talking about what was important. (They were) reviewing some assessments and things that were done, looking at the building, (and then) drew up what was important. It’s exciting to be able to now start putting that together.”

A wide range of updates are planned, but the largest swath of the $11 million will go toward upgrades to the heating, cooling and electrical systems. Jones said 46% of the bond money goes toward those improvements. Safety and security at the school and renovations to the gym, including bringing areas of the gym up to code, make up another large portion of the bond.

One bonus, she said, is some of the work can be done at the same time as work being done with the school’s nearly $2.3 million seismic grant. The pots of money can’t be merged together, but, for example, data from an assessment done for the seismic work could be used for the new bond, and in that way, the assessment wouldn’t need to be done twice.

“You don’t have to duplicate things,” she said. “There will be some nice ways” that helps out.

The next part of the process, Jones said, is to work with the bond counsel.

The following step would be “requesting architect, engineering and design services,” she said. “Getting that on board, you can start looking at the schematic and design. It’ll be a community team that will be a part of that process — community members and school members, as well. Once you have a design and a plan, then it’s working on getting a contractor on board.”

Jones said that, with all those elements to still be taken care of, “We’re probably a year out from construction.”

Wallowa School District was also the site of two of the three contested school board elections Tuesday night, with the third being in Joseph.

In a three-way race, Zach Lathrop edged out incumbent Mike Lowe and fellow challenger Joseph Miles for Position 2 on the Wallowa School Board. Lathrop won with nearly 45% of the vote, edging Lowe, who had just over 41.5%, by 20 votes, 278-258. Miles ran in third with just over 13% of the vote, or 82 votes.

The other race in Wallowa, which was for Position 5 on the school board, went to Mark Moeller, who eked out a nine-vote victory over Bill Robb, 318-309, or 50.48% to 49.05%.

Jones said she had not had much previous interaction with the two new members of the board.

“And I don’t know Mr. Lathrop really well. I know Mr. Moeller,” she said. “I’ve interacted with him some. … It’s exciting to have people ready to serve.”

In Joseph, Kathy Zacharias topped incumbent Rachel Sykora to win a four-year term in Position 4 with a 339-136 victory, garnering more than 71% of the vote.

Other winners

All other election winners, in uncontested races, were:

• In the Enterprise School District, Heather Melville (Position 1), Kate Fent (Position 4) and Mandy Decker (Position 5).

• In the Joseph School District, Olivia Losby (Position 6).

• In the Troy School District, Rene Crawford (Position 2) and Dustin DeHaan (Position 5).

• In the Lower Valley Water District, Kim Werst (Position 4) and Rick Schaeffer (Position 5).

• In the Evergreen Water District, Rob Burns, Jason Crenshaw and Gary Willett.

• In the Wallowa Rural Fire District, Larry Wightman and Bobbie Baker.

• In the Wallowa Lake Rural Fire District, Bob Young (Position 3), Dave Hurley (Position 4) and Greg Johnson (Position 5).

• In the Wallowa Cemetery District, Bonnie Henderson.

• In the Lostine Cemetery District, Muriel Jones, Les Carlsen and Shirley Doud.

• In the Enterprise Cemetery District, Tim Kiesecker (Position 5).

• In the Alder Slope Cemetery District, Reid Kooch.

• In the Joseph Cemetery District, Tom Schaafsma.

• On the Wallowa Memorial Hospital Board, Nick Lunde (Position 3) and Kate Loftus (Position 4).

• At the ESD, David Flynn and Bre Austin.