NOVEMBER 19, 2019 – AMENDMENT VOTE RESULTS BY TOWN
Question 1 – Amend Article 11 – Board Representation
Yes, No, Blank
Brattleboro: 310, 36, –
Dummerston: 56, 129, –
Guilford: 45, 47, 1
Putney: 56, 137, 2
TOTAL: 467, 349, 3
Question 2 – Amend Article 3 – Restructuring of Grade Configurations
Yes, No, Blank
Brattleboro: 219, 119, –
Dummerston: 158, 26, 1
Guilford: 75, 17, 1
Putney: 171, 24, –
TOTAL: 623, 186, 2
Question 3 – Amend Article 4 – Closure of School Buildings
Yes, No, Blank
Brattleboro: 222, 118, –
Dummerston: 159, 25, 1
Guilford: 82, 10, 1
Putney: 171, 23, 1
TOTAL : 634, 176, 3
Question 4 – Add Article 15 – Leadership Councils
Yes, No, Blank
Brattleboro: 305, 37, –
Dummerston: 163, 21, 1
Guilford: 85, 8, –
Putney: 181, 14, –
TOTAL: 734, 80, 1
Attest: Barbara D. Nowakowski /s/
Windham Southeast School District Clerk
November 20, 2019
Interesting result
Question 1 – all towns other than Brattleboro (3/4) say NO. It passes.
WSESD results
The result is ‘interesting’ when parsed by individual town results. However, one feature of the merged district is that votes are co-mingled among the towns. The overall popular vote supports the increase of the board by two additional seats. This board needs more members because the work load is way too much for the present size of the board.
With a total population of the four town district of about 18,700 the number of seats is not determined by proportional representation. Brattleboro, 12,000. Guilford, 2,100. Dummerston, 1,800. Putney, 2,800. Adding 2 more Brattleboro seats is reasonable.
Articles #2 and #3 provide additional safeguards for the interests of the smaller towns.
Co-mingling
Adding more seats is reasonable – according to Brattleboro. : )
I found it interesting that in the first vote out of the gate, the large town outvoted the others to make itself even larger, and am curious to see (going forward) how often this sort of result occurs. Is it a fluke, or will Brattleboro often “overrule” neighbors?
Also interesting – the highest YES combined total was for the Leadership Councils. This seems very much desired.