Colby K-12 voters approve referendum

By Nathaniel Underwood

Both referendum questions put forward to voters by the Colby School District on Tuesday passed by significant margins following the Nov. 5 election.

Question 1, which asked for $17.77 million to fund school maintenance and facility modernization projects passed, with 1,678 votes cast in favor of the referendum and 1,086 votes cast against the movement.

The $7.7 million requested in Question 2 would largely fund an addition to the elementary that would allow the fourth grade to move back down to the elementary building and the eighth grade to move back to the middle school. The second question passed by a near identical margin as the first, with 1,667 voters casting “yes” votes compared to the 1,070 votes cast for “no” to the referendum.

The referendum saw especially high support in the city of Colby, where the approval of the first question received 70.5 percent of the vote and the approval of the second question received 69.7 percent of the vote.

Approval in most other municipalities sat between 50 and 60 percent.

The town of Holton and the town of Green Grove were the primary outliers, in which neither question received more than 50 percent approval. In Green Grove, Question 1 received 19 “yes” votes to 26 “no” votes while Question 2 received 22 “yes” votes to 24 “no.” Meanwhile, in Holton, Question 1 received 112 votes of approval while 122 votes were cast not in favor and Question 2 had 114 “yes” votes and 117 “no” votes.