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$4M parks bond approved, 17 days after city election
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · November 25, 2015
It took less than an hour, but Friday’s recount confirmed that the $4 million parks improvement referendum passed with a slim margin, 17 days after the general election.
The 242-161 vote, showing 60.0496 percent support, finally and officially gives the City of West Branch the go-ahead on several parks improvement projects, the biggest of which includes building ball fields in Pedersen Valley.
“The headline should be ‘It passed,’” Dick Stoolman, the resident who petitioned for the recount, said when the final numbers were confirmed in the large meeting room in the basement of the Cedar County Courthouse.
Parks and Recreation Director Melissa Russell said she felt nervous about saying anything one way or another when a single provisional ballot, counted three days after the election, put support into supermajority territory for the first time.
“I was superstitious about (talking before),” she said after texting to park commission members the outcome. “I’m happy to have closure, and that we can move forward.”
City Administrator Matt Muckler sent out his Weekly Council Update which opened with “Recount Results - Park Vote Passes (Again).”
He wrote in that memo that city staff will next determine how the vote affects Tax Increment Financing debt certification -- an estimate of how much TIF revenues will be needed for the planned work -- and that the City Council will at its Nov. 30 meeting start talks about design.
The recount board, which met at 10 a.m. Friday, was made up of Stoolman, Cedar County Treasurer Gary Jedlicka and West Branch resident Norm Bickford, the latter chosen by Stoolman and Jedlicka.
Cedar County Auditor Cari Gritton gave them three choices: monitor the process of feeding them into the vote-counting machine, hand-counting the votes, or both.
Gritton said she had attended the day before an Iowa State Association of Counties convention and came across vendors who represented the companies who made Cedar County’s vote-counting machine and who printed the ballots for this election. She said she invited them to the recount and they accepted, driving down from Cedar Rapids to Tipton that morning to observe.
The recount board first considered monitoring the vote-counting machines, but changed their mind when they learned the machine cannot recognize a checkmark or X next to a choice. Gritton said that the rules for counting votes are different when counted by hand, and that such votes are valid, even if the voter does not fill in the circle as instructed. Ballots which had markings next to both choices were to be ignored, Bickford said.
Gritton said there were 407 ballots to consider, but that four of the votes would not count. Two of the precinct votes -- votes cast on Election Day at the voting booth -- skipped the parks referendum question, making them “undervotes.”
The other two votes were absentee, she said, one of which came in with a “late postmark” and the other where “the lady refused to vote.” These latter two votes were not presented to the recount board.
Gritton had the votes separated into sealed packets: 334 precinct votes, 70 absentee and one provisional ballot where the voter’s address was verified after Election Day.
Bickford sat in the center and read the “yes” or “no” selection on each ballot. Jedlicka sat to his right to record “yes” votes and Stoolman sat to his left to record the “no” votes. They started with the 334 precinct ballots.
By the end, this reporter counted 194 “yes” votes and 138 “no” votes, as well as two undervotes, for 334 total votes. Jedlicka’s “yes” count matched, but Stoolman said he had 139 “no” votes. Gritton suggested Stoolman may have miscounted, so the recount board separated the votes into “yes” and “no” piles, then counted the piles. Once they counted 10 ballots, they set those down, counted 10 more and turned the pages to keep them distinct, and continued this criss-cross pattern until the counting was finished. They then counted the 10-page stacks with the remainders and confirmed 194 to 138, with two undervotes.
At this point, support for the parks referendum stood at 58.08 percent, with opposition at 41.32 percent.
The recount board followed the same procedure for the absentee ballots, coming up with 47 in favor and 23 against. That meant absentee ballots supported the measure 67.14 percent, with opposition at 32.86 percent.
The running total now showed support at 59.95 percent and opposition at 40.05 percent.
Lastly, the board counted the single provisional ballot, which supported the $4 million measure. With each ballot now worth 0.248 percentage points, that pushed the support up to 60.0496 percent, enough to surpass the 60-percent threshold necessary for public support to pass.
“So it didn’t change,” Stoolman said.
He checked his watch. It was 10:52 p.m.
“I didn’t even have to buy dinner,” he added, smiling.
Asked if he had any other thoughts after the recount, he paused.
“I’ll be dead before it’s paid off,” the retired fire chief said.
The city has said it plans to pay off the $4 million with a 10-year 1-percent Local Option Sales Tax, which voters approved last year, and TIF revenues.
Russell said she does not know the timeline for the work, but said the parks commission would spend the next few months getting ready.
“A lot of planning will happen over the winter months,” she said.
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