Hurray for Lazy Opponents!


Yesterday was election day here in our area and the one issue that concerned us the most was the Proposition R for the Ladue School District. This was a $85 million bond issue to renovate the high school which needs to be significantly updated. The proponent group has been very active and vocal (they even tried to recruit me) so I was guessing the proposition would probably pass, and it won in pretty good style, 4459 for and 2505 against for a 64.03% approval rate, well above the 57.14% needed for passage. But what struck me at those numbers was not how many people voted for the proposition, but how few voted against it. We had a bond issue vote in 2010 and then a general operating expense vote in 2012 and the numbers for and against those issues shows an interesting contrast:



       For Against        Total     Percent
2010 4717 3092 7809 60.40%
2012 4754 4255 9009 52.77%
2016 4459 2505 6964 64.03%

The "Yes" vote this year was actually a little bit lower than it had been in either 2010 or 2012, but what really dropped this year was the "No" votes. Perhaps even the "anti-tax" folks realized the 1950's era high school was in desperate need of some major renovations, but since they could not bear to vote for a tax increase they simply did not show up to vote at all. Plus it was a bond issue vote instead of a general operating vote like in 2012 which brought out a pretty large crowd. Our son (a 2015 LHWHS graduate) voted to help his alma mater, and the Yes group was good in making sure the recent graduates voted, especially after many of them just voted for the first time in the Presidential primary just a few weeks ago.

In a few weeks they should have the voting results by township and I will be interested to see how the different areas of the school district voted. 

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