Jefferson City voters last Tuesday pulled a 180-degree turn at the wheel of democracy.
In almost a complete opposite outcome as the 2013 municipal election, voters approved the Jefferson City Public Schools district's two high school plan.
The 2013 election also had a school district plan on the ballot that proposed to raise taxes to pay for a high school expansion project; that plan in the form of a single, mega-sized high school.
The municipal election in April 2013 saw a higher-than-expected turnout, at 25.66 percent of registered voters; they voted down the mega-school proposal then, which like this year's successful Propositions J and C also came in the form of two ballot questions.
Ballot question one in 2013 asked voters to approve a $79 million bond issue to pay for construction of the new high school. It failed when 64.27 percent of voters did not support it.
The second ballot question in 2013 asked voters for an operating levy increase for the school district, and 67.31 percent of voters then did not support it.
The choices voters made in April 2017 were almost mirror opposites; not taking into account votes from non-Jefferson City residents in Callaway County areas that vote on JCPS district issues, 62.86 percent of voters supported Proposition J's $130 million bond issue, and 60.83 percent supported an operating levy increase.
Voter turnout this year was even higher still than in 2013, at 32.21 percent, with many voters saying the school issues drove them to the polls. That number is a record but not unprecedented. The Cole County clerk's office reported to the News Tribune turnout in a 1999 municipal election was 42.92 percent; 34.16 percent in 2002; and 33.94 percent in 2005.
On a precinct by precinct basis, some of the turnouts this year were still pretty astounding. In Ward 3's 1st precinct, 49.13 percent of registered voters turned out - the highest percentage of any precinct in the city this election and approaching turnout territories usually seen in November elections with presidential and gubernatorial candidates on the ballot.
Exact precinct by precinct turnout comparisons between 2017 and 2013 can't really be made because of substantial re-districting in the intermediate time. Ward 4 has consolidated from five precincts to two; Ward 3 from five down to three; Ward 5 from four to three; and Ward 1 from four down to three precincts.
Of Jefferson City's current 14 precincts, four had turnouts above 40 percent, and eight had turnouts above the overall turnout rate.
"Did we target specific parts of town more? Not really. I think we looked hard at different segments of populations like young parents and senior citizens, etc., but not really different parts of town," Dan Westhues said of the campaign efforts of Citizens Investing in J Plus C. "Citizens" is political action committee of private citizens who came together to support the two high school proposal. Westhues is a co-chairman of the group.
"I would say that our main play was to keep it to the facts, keep the messaging tight and consistent, and rebuild trust in the district," he said.
In every single one of the 14 precincts in Jefferson City, a majority of voters supported Proposition J, though in the second and third precincts of Ward 1, the support wasn't enough to get past the four-sevenths majority needed for approval - 53.75 percent and 50.30 percent, respectively, when anything above 57.14 percent was needed.
Ward 1 is on the east side of the city, where in the lead up to the election, many community members had expressed frustration the district's two high school plan did not immediately address elementary-level overcrowding issues, especially at East Elementary School. The district made slight boundary line changes as a temporary remedy to the problem and has said around 2021 or 2022 it will use the bonding capacity granted by the high school projects to ask for no tax increase bond issues to fund elementary and middle school projects.
Proposition C's operating levy increase failed only in the third precinct of Ward 1, where 49.93 percent of voters supported that ballot issue. Overall, voters across the city supported Proposition J more than Proposition C.
The highest percentage of yes votes for J in a precinct came from Ward 2's second precinct, with 72.86 percent of voters in favor of the bond issue.
Across the Missouri River in Callaway County, 1,879 votes came from people who can vote on JCPS district issues. Those votes came from the two Holts Summit precincts, the Cedar City/Holts Summit Rural precinct and the Tebbetts and New Bloomfield precincts. Turnout in Holts Summit was 25.76 percent, and 27.14 percent at Cedar City/Holts Summit Rural.
Of the 637 votes cast on Proposition J in Holts Summits' precincts, 62 percent favored it. Of 634 votes cast on Proposition C, 59.31 percent supported it. At the Cedar City/Holts Summit Rural precinct, 58.33 percent of 1,039 voters supported Proposition J, and 58.01 percent of 1,036 voters supported Proposition C.
The propositions failed in Tebbetts, with 47.44 percent support for J and 44.52 percent support for C among the voters who made choices on the school issues there. There were only 156 votes there though, and just three votes cast at New Bloomfield on the school issues (all three in favor of the propositions).
Callaway County results from these areas in 2013's election were not immediately available.
This year's election results in Jefferson Township and other areas of Cole County outside Jefferson City were mixed. A majority of voters supported Propositions J and C in the Apache Falts, C.C. General, Expressway Rental, Jefferson City Fairgrounds and Scott Station precincts. Proposition J narrowly failed at C.C. General and Expressway Rental though, by virtue of not having a four-sevenths majority - 56.45 percent at C.C. General and 57.07 percent at Expressway Rental.
Voters in the Liberty/Taos precinct and the Marion Township/Centertown precinct voted down Propositions J and C outright, although the votes for and against C tied in Liberty/Taos.
In the Marion Township/St. Martins precinct, 54.31 percent of voters supported Proposition J - not enough to pass it - and 52.57 percent voted in favor of Proposition C.
In 2013, not one of these areas in Cole County supported either of the one high school plan ballot questions with anything close to a majority, ranging from 20 percent to about 35 percent of voters in favor of either question then.
Needed majorities of absentee voters in Cole County approved J and C. Only about 35 percent of absentee voters in the county supported the one high school plan in 2013.