Possibly three, but certainly two, area school districts will issue bonds and start constructing new buildings because of bond issues approved Tuesday by voters.

Ottawa, Perry-Lecompton and Tonganoxie school districts each had proposed bond issues on election ballots. Each question carried, though the margin in Ottawa was close enough that officials there were awaiting the count of provisional ballots before declaring victory.

The Tonganoxie school district’s $25.3 million bond issue passed with 59 percent of the votes. According to the Leavenworth County Clerk’s office 2,319 voted “yes” while 1,613 voted against the bond issue. Official results will be available Monday.

Tonganoxie school officials said they were relieved.

“I think with any bond election there is concern it won’t pass,” said Tonganoxie Supt. Richard Erickson. “But as the election results came in for us it certainly set a positive tone.”

The $9.9 million bond issue for the Perry-Lecompton school district was a clear victory, with 64 percent of the votes cast favoring the bond issue. With totals from the clerk’s offices in Douglas and Jefferson counties combined, 1,751 people voted for the bond issue and 983 voted against it. Official numbers will be available after vote canvassing Friday for Jefferson County and Monday for Douglas County.

But Ottawa school officials were handed a relatively close finish in their quest to issue $25.9 million in bonds.

Just 466 votes separate the 3,201 votes for the bond issue and 2,735 against it. A staff member with the Franklin County Clerk’s office said that margin didn’t include provisional ballots, which the office will count Friday. Clerk officials also couldn’t say how many provisional ballots could be included in the final count.

In January 2003, voters rejected a $36 million bond issue for Ottawa schools.

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“Hopefully (it) will help us to better educate the students,” Ottawa Supt. Jan Collins said of this bond issue. “I think that we all should be excited.”

The district will use the $25.9 million to:

• Tear down Lincoln Elementary School, purchase land and build and equip a new school to replace it. Repairing the 1950s-era elementary’s foundation problems and other structural problems would be expensive, Collins said.
• Renovate and expand Garfield Elementary.
• Replace parts of Ottawa High School’s heating and air-conditioning system, expand the music rooms, build two classrooms and improve drainage.
• Improve technology throughout the district.
• Buy land in southwest Ottawa for a future school, probably an elementary school for expected growth in that area.

Work begins

Perry-Lecompton Supt. Steve Johnston said he and others would meet with architects today.

“Now, it actually gets a little busier for us,” he said. “But that’s OK. It’s what we were wanting.”

Voters in the Perry-Lecompton district passed a $9.9 million bond issue, which means the district will now:

• Build a new middle school for fifth through eighth grades.
• Construct a new competition gymnasium as an addition to the Perry-Lecompton High School.
• Remodel office space and add two new classrooms and a gym to Lecompton Elementary School.

Four years’ work

Erickson said about four years ago, people began working on the $25.3 million bond issue for Tonganoxie schools.

“I’m very thankful and so happy for our kids that this passed,” he said of the bond issue. “It’s just a real huge victory.”

The bond issue includes:

• A new midlevel school for students in fifth through eighth grades.
• Converting the kindergarten through sixth-grade building to a kindergarten through fourth-grade facility.
• Renovating and remodeling the high school and in areas where seventh- and eighth-graders were schooled.
• A new theater for the high school and converting the old high school theater into a library/media center.

“This is great,” Erickson said. “We’re overcrowded in our schools and our high school is old and in great need of being updated.”