April 19 — There is no excuse for forgetting to vote in school bond election

After the Puyallup School District bond failed by a mere 400 votes in February, superintendent Dr. Tony Apostle received the list of registered voters who opted not to vote. It’s not a short list. The list has 52 names per page. It’s 750 pages long. That’s 39,000 people who didn’t vote yes, or no, for the school bond. The school district needed only eight pages of “yes” voters to approve the bond. To put that into perspective, the population of Puyallup is 36,360. Along with North Puyallup and South Hill, which help make up the district, 59,000 residents were registered to vote in the election. In fact, fewer people cast a ballot than the 21,000 students enrolled in the district’s schools. Over in the Sumner School District, fewer than 9,000 out of 21,000 registered voters cast a ballot. At 34% for Puyallup and 43% for Sumner, that’s not a great turn-out for either district. It’s downright shameful for communities that have long prided themselves on dedication to schools and children’s education. There are any number of reasons people decided not to vote. Maybe you got that ballot in the mail a few weeks before the election and packed it away, forgetting about it until it was too late. It happens. Apostle said it almost happened to him. Or, perhaps residents need what Apostle calls “a tap on the shoulder,” a reminder of the importance of filling out a ballot and making a decision. There’s really no excuse. If you don’t vote, you are handing over our children’s future to others, people you will never know. You won’t know if those who did vote and decided these important bond issues in our school district have good intentions or are selfishly motivated. That makes no sense. When you vote, you have a voice. It’s a duty, and a privilege. If you are one of the 39,000 in the Puyallup district or the 12,000 in the Sumner district who did not vote in February, you have another chance. Both districts are asking voters again, on May 15, to approve funding that will make our public schools better.