School bond measures, parcel tax passing with new election results; fire tax still failing

Sonoma County released its largest batch of counted ballots since election night, revealing that all five school bond measures totaling $84 million and a school parcel tax are succeeding, but a proposed half-cent sales tax to fund county firefighting services was still failing on Wednesday.

About 44,000 ballots were added to the election results Wednesday, bringing the total number of counted ballots up to 143,429, said Deva Proto, the county’s registrar of voters. She estimated there may be as many as 38,000 ballots left to count, including 25,000 mail-in ballots that she hoped would be reported in the election results by Thursday.

Results for the three county supervisor races held up, with former Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Coursey maintaining his 53% lead over incumbent Supervisor Shirlee Zane. Incumbents Susan Gorin and Lynda Hopkins maintained comfortable leads over their opponents after receiving 61% and 80% of the vote, respectively.

The five public school bond measures on the ballot - intended to improve the infrastructure of schools in Santa Rosa, Geyserville, Sebastopol and Healdsburg - needed a 55% majority to pass. A few of those races were too close to call on election night, but all five measures were passing that threshold with the new batch of counted votes Wednesday.

The most expensive bond on the ballot was Measure C, which asked Bellevue Union School District voters to support a $28 million bond. By Wednesday, it had received almost 58% of the vote.

Measure A, which asked Geyserville Unified School District voters to approve a $22 million bond, received 56% of the vote. Measure D, which would approve a $9.4 million bond for the Roseland School District, passed with 59% of the vote Wednesday. Residents in the Sebastopol Union School District approved a $17.5 million bond, with Measure E receiving nearly 64% of the vote. And Measure F, a $7.5 million bond for the West Side Union School District, also crossed the threshold after receiving about 59% of the vote.

Measure B, a $79 parcel tax over the course of eight years for the West Sonoma County Union High School District, held a narrow lead with nearly 67% of the vote. Before the new batch of counted ballots, the measure was falling short of the two-thirds majority it needed to pass.

Two other measures on the ballot, though, were still falling short of the two-thirds majority they needed to pass. Measure I, a proposed 30-year extension of Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit’s current quarter-cent tax, received just 51% of the vote in Sonoma County by Wednesday.

And Measure G, which was estimated to generate about $51 million annually for some three dozen fire agencies, received about 63% of the vote. Tim Aboudara, president of the Santa Rosa Fire Fighters Union, said he was “not super encouraged” the measure would pass, but was still holding out hope the remaining uncounted ballots would make a difference in the final tally. All election results will be certified by March 31, according to Proto.