Hendrick Hudson Voters Soundly Reject Bond
Voters in the Hendrick Hudson School District have overwhelming defeated the proposed $25,094,908 capital projects bond.
The bond went down by a vote of 1,777 to 977 on Dec. 14.
The bond split residents who spoke both in favor and against the bond during school board meetings leading up to the balloting.
Shortly after the ballots were tallied at the Frank G. Lindsey Elementary School, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Daniel McCann commented on the bond’s defeat.
“Our community has spoken,” McCann said. “While the results are disappointing, it represents the voice of our community. Still though, our needs remain and going forward we will reexamine those needs with the community.”
“The democratic process is one of the most important and fundamental functions of our society. I would like to thank everyone who took part in this important vote. Many voices were heard, thoughts were shared and as a result I believe we are a better, stronger community,” McCann said.
Some of the bond project proposals included the construction of an 850-seat “community performing arts center” on the high school campus. Also at the high school, the bond included instructional space improvements, the reconfiguration of a science lab and a classroom to accommodate a bio-medical and science research program, and enhancement of the school’s athletic fields.
The bond would also have included the improvement of performing arts spaces at the district’s two elementary schools. At the middle school the bond would have included plans to renovate classrooms and improve a lab to accommodate life science and river ecology classes and improve the school’s performing arts center. Some of the other potential projects would have included upgrades of the district’s technology infrastructure, some furniture replacement, replacement of the high school gym roof; the rehabilitation of septic fields at Blue Mountain Middle School and Furnace Woods Elementary Schools; and the repair and replacement of a portion of the Buchanan Verplanck Elementary School roof.
Following the counting of the ballots, board of education trustee Charles Thompson described voter turnout as “very heavy.” Thompson said the board of education would not comment on the results.
At the board of education meeting shortly before the polls closed School Board President Marion Walsh said the bond proposal had been a contentious issue in the school district. Walsh said some critics of the bond unfairly expressed “negativity” about the quality of the educational program provided in Hendrick Hudson.
