Well, I was #1. Mr. Mxyzptlk was nowhere in sight. He is usually first. I hope he’s all right but he seems a healthy sort. Maybe he voted absentee? This is the first year our state has had absentee voting for no reason. I still like to visit the polls. Usually one of my old Haisley Mafia buddies Kathy or Jackie are working.

Of course being #1 means that the poll workers are re-learning their jobs, since they only do them a few times a year. I know that feeling and empathize with them. But my ballot jammed the Ballot Eating Musheen. Error code 5. I didn’t think it would help to tell him what Error code 5 meant in my online banking world. Anyway, the musheen screen proclaimed “ballot counted” and after standing there wondering what I should do for a few minutes, I decided to trust that it was an accurate message and galumphed on home to get ready for Cubelandia.

We did not have any people to vote for this off-year. In fact there was only one thing on the ballot. School district capital bond proposal. Yes or No. I struggled with this but ultimately voted no. I am a strong supporter of public education and this is probably the first time I have ever voted against a school millage or bond proposal.

When I was a kid up in Sault Ste. Siberia, I spent my first two high school years in an ancient, crumbling building. It was built for 600 students and we had to stuff at least twice that many into it. I was particularly afraid of being trapped on the third floor in a faaaaar but we’ll go there some other day. A couple of millages failed before our city finally passed one and we built a brand new high school on the outskirts of town. I attended that school my junior and senior year. We’ll talk about trudging across the tundra at 32 below some other day.

That experience plus the generally crappy funding our state has provided for education in recent years made this reeeaaallly hard for me to vote no on. But. It was one BILLION dollars and goes on for the next 30 years. I did not vote against this proposal because of the money. I can easily afford the increase in property tax. It’s the 30 years that gets me. Equitable school funding is an EXTREMELY complicated issue and we are FAR from solving it but I was eventually swayed by the number of people who pointed out that building contractors with connections would be licking their lips if this passes. Building improvements are necessary and not always funded by the state budget (I am told). Not all building contractors are bad (and I know some good ones) but there’s gotta be a better way than this gargantuan proposal.

And we’ll talk about air conditioning in northern schools some other day 🐽

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