Small Town News

Voters give ok to ACC taxes

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In the months of campaigning before the Nov. 2 elections, Republican candidates at the state and local level were unified in their campaign message they delivered in TV ads and stump speeches: a vote for the GOP was a vote for belt-tightening, back-to-the basics fiscal conservatism.

County politics,

by its nature less partisan and more inclined to workaday issues like road building and jail maintenance, followed a similar script of economic frugality.

Voters responded with a flood of support for Republican candidates at a national, state and local level, installing a GOP majority in congress and one seat shy of a Republican su-permajority in the state house. In Hays County, every one of the 28 contested partisan races on the ballot went to the GOP

Despite that, ACC passed.

By a comfortable margin of almost 57 percent, Hays CISD voted to annex into the Austin Community College District, gaining in-district tuition reductions and a local campus, but also adding another taker onto their annual property tax bills to the tune of about $120 per year.

The Hays initiative was one of five ACC annexation measures on the ballot throughout Central Texas. Elgin joined Hays CISD in approving the annexation, while voters in three other districts, including San Marcos ISD, shot it down.

Voters were frustrated by the continuing recession and negatively disposed to vote for anything associated with expanded government spending, noted ACC President Stephen Kinslow.

"You have a lot of people concerned about the economy in general, so anything associated with taxes gets looked at more closely than other issues," Kinslow said.

But Kinslow argued that ACC wasn't a partisan issue for voters, or, more specifically, a Democrat issue.

"I think good education policy is not a political issue," Kin-slow said. "I think most people recognize that education is the great equalizer in our society. I don't think it's a Democratic or liberal issue or a Republican or conservative issue."

But statistical analysis of voter returns from the 15 precincts in Hays CISD and the 18 precincts in San Marcos ISD suggest differently.

By comparing the precinct-by-precinct proportion of GOP straight ticket votes and votes for Republican Congressional challenger Donna Campbell against the proportion of voters who cast a ballot for and against ACC, a clear picture emerges.

Republicans were significantly less likely to cast a ballot in favor of ACC annexation, while high Democratic turnout was strongly correlated with strong ACC support.

Across the board, a one percent dip in support for Campbell in favor of Democrat incumbent Lloyd Doggett resulted in a 0.72 percent drop in votes for ACC annexation.

So how did the measure pass in red Hays CISD, where almost 58 percent of the straight ticket vote went to Republicans and Campbell garnered a 55 percent lead, and fail in blue San Marcos ISD, where Democrats took 50.4 percent of the straight tickets and Doggett earned a comfortable 54.3 percent lead?

The answer, said Buda Economic Development Director Warren Ketteman, was good old fashioned elbow grease.

"This was the culmination of a lot of work," Ketteman said. "It wasn't just a recent issue. It started with Buda and Kyle teaming up and trying to get Concordia University to take a look at Hays five years ago."

A group of community leaders, business advocates and education proponents banded together to create the North Hays County Steering Committee, organizing a petition drive to put ACC on the ballot in Hays CISD and then campaigning for its approval.

The group worked to spread their message that more education translates to higher earning power for all community residents, Ketteman said.

"Giving them that opportunity at community college can really make a difference in our economy," Ketteman said. "A rising tide lifts all boats."

While a smattering of yard signs and letters to the editor opposed the annexation, an organized opposition never emerged in Hays CISD, Ketteman said. The opposite was true in San Marcos, where organized support was more limited and opposition was fierce.

A previous ACC petition drive in San Marcos in 2006 was called off after an organizer, not affiliated with ACC, put fraudulent signatures on the ballot.

"There is still a bad taste about that in San Marcos," Ketteman said. "Youi erode that trust factor and boy, it's hard to get that back."

Again, statistical regression analysis of the votes; yields a clearer picture. Republicans in the 15 Hays precindts were still less likely than Demiocrats to vote for ACC. But in Hays, party affiliation explained! a relatively small percent of the; vote, while in San Marcos, the v/otes were much more consistent with party affiliation. In other words, Hays had more bipartisan support.

It's also possible that many of the staunchest straight-ticket voters didn't even realize that ACC was on the ballot. Under-voting, in which a voter simply doesn't pick a candidate in a particular race, leaving that ballot item blank, was prevalent in both ACC races.

Across the county, voters left the ballot blank only 2 - 6.5 percent of the time in races between two major party challengers. Straight ticket voters can't under-vote in a partisan race, since the voting machine automatically casts a ballot for each of their party's candidates.

But down at the bottom of the ballot, under-voting in the non-partisan races such as San Marcos council seats and Edwards Aquifer board members stretched from 12-40 percent.

In Hays CISD, 1,661 voters out of 13,431 left the ACC annexation blank, amounting to a 12/4 percent undervote - more than enough to sway the final outcome. And in San Marcos ISD, where several hotly contested city council races should have drawn voters to the bottom of the ballot, the undercount was even higher-1,542 votes, amounting to 13.2 percent.

ACC officials say they'll construct a $51 million campus on 72,000 acres in Kyle's Plum Creek development, with a target opening date of August, 2013.

VOTING TOTALS

See precinct by precinct election results on Page 1D



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© 2010 The Free Press Buda, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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