Brownfield/Terry Co. Elections Results, BISD Bond Passes

The election has come and gone and some new people get an opportunity to make a difference for their community. However, that was not the biggest story of this election.

Brownfield ISD placed a $40 million bond issue on the districts’ ballot, which prompted a more than normal voter turnout for a May General Election. Countywide there were 1284 cast ballots, which is roughly a little over ten percent of Terry County’s population. There were a total of 1083 votes cast for the bond with 651 in favor and 432 against, a 60/40 percent split. The $40 million bond passes and BISD will hold a special called meeting to canvas and declare the votes of the bond election.

According to BISD and the “C” Brownfield Rise PAC this is what is included in the bond proposal. Since bond passed it will go to build a new high school and move the students from the current middle school to the current high school. The classroom section of the current middle school will be demolished and cleared out. BISD plans to keep the gymnasiums, auditorium, and kitchen/cafeteria and make upgrades to those places. The bond will also be for the construction to secure entrances and visitor screening areas at all academic campuses plus other security renovations. The bond will help fund new playgrounds for both Colonial Heights and Oak Grove Elementary Schools.

BISD Superintendent told TownTalk, “Brownfield ISD is excited and humbled by the confidence that our community has placed in us. We will work tirelessly to make sure we are good stewards of taxpayer money and we will continue to work to make BISD a model district that everyone can be proud of.”

Moving on to other election results, BRMC had three open At-Large seats. Incumbent Justin Hesse retained his position with 1387 votes. Incumbent Sue Cottrell also retained her seat with 610 votes and Bobby Lawrence will be a newcomer to the board with 447 votes. Also of note that Krystal Valentin, the Terry County Joint Elections Administrator, presented was the fact that there were 631 undervotes of the 3852 total votes cast for the BRMC Board Election. An undervote occurs when the number of choices selected by a voter in a contest is less than the maximum number allowed for that contest or when no selection is made for a single choice contest. In other words, there were 631 votes that were not used.

In the Wellman-Union ISD School Board Election, there were a total of 246 votes cast with Incumbent Ed Rodriguez retaining his seat with 81 votes. Two newcomers replaced the two other open seats and beat out two incumbents and they are Ryan Dill who had 49 votes and Aaron Martin who had 57 votes. Bobby Brown and Michael Franke did not retain their seats.

The Meadow ISD School Board had five candidates running for two seats. The only incumbent, Keith Harrison kept his seat with 50 votes and Scott Caswell, who has been on the board before taking the second open spot with 42 votes

The other contested election was the Brownfield City Council District 5 Seat. The current holder of this seat is, Councilman Ray McFarland. However, McFarland will come off because of term limits. Isaiah Bautista and Eric Horton both vied for the Dist. 5 seat with Eric Horton becoming Councilman Elect with 192 votes to Isaiah Bautista’s 164 votes. There were a total of 40 undervotes in this election making District 5 have 36% of the total Bond Election votes. This was the first time that both Isaiah Bautista and Eric Horton were candidates for City Council and will be Horton’s first time to be on the council. Horton will be sworn in on Thursday, May, 9th.

The City of Wellman had a sales tax increase proposition on their ballot and it passed 32 to 15.