Richland, Toppenish Voters Reject Major School, City Bonds

Voters in Toppenish and Richland appear to have rejected two major bond projects.

  Richland voters shoot down plan to build 3rd HS

Proposition 1 is a $314 million-dollar bond, the bulk of which would go toward building a third high school for the Richland School District, and would renovate River's Edge Alternative HS.

RSD says River's Edge is the oldest current-use building in the school system, it's similar to Legacy or Tri-Tech, offering alternative education platforms for students.

Richland and Hanford  High Schools both have well over 2,100-2,200 students, which is several hundred over their intended original capacity.

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As of Tuesday, the Richland Prop 1 was failing by about a 54-45 percent margin. So far, a total of 25,139 ballots have been counted in this race.

In Toppenish, voters were also rejecting a Proposition 1, which would create a Toppenish Metro Park District that would be used to operate and maintain the city's parks, recreation facilities, aquatic facilities including the city pool by way of a tax.

So far, that vote has been 57 percent no, vs. 42 percent yes.

However, both counties (Benton and Yakima) still have (as of Tuesday) about 30,000 ballots left to count, how many ballots affect these projects was not released by officials.  Only voters within appropriate boundaries are voting on these projects, they are not county-wide.