Early voting ends Friday at Cooke Co. Clerk's office; Cooke Co. Judge, bonds on ballot
Nov. 4—The 2022 electoral season concludes Tuesday, with voters around Cooke County deciding who should be the next County Judge and whether or not the city of Gainesville and two school districts should float new bonds.
Early voting wraps up Friday (today). Cooke County Clerk Pam Harrison told the Register that business has been brisk at her office on the courthouse square in Gainesville, with over 5,700 early ballots cast so far. That comes out to about 19 percent of registered voters.
"It's been steady," said Harrison, who added that elderly voters may vote early at the office's curbside, if they wish. "It hasn't been too bad."
Harrison said she has plenty of poll workers trained up for Tuesday's in-person voting around Cooke County. One notable change this year will be private contractors doing exit polling at the Gainesville Civic Center. Harrison said the contractors are non-partisan and are allowed to approach voters outside the polling site; however, voters are not obligated to cooperate, if they choose not to.
Era ISD
Era ISD is taking another stab at passing a school bond to pay for much needed improvements to its campuses.
The plan, estimated to cost $13.9 million, will be up for public review and questions Oct. 25 at 6 p.m. in the district's board room at Era High School.
The proposed work would include several measures to bring district buildings into compliance with federal laws for disability access, installation of new fire alarms, fixing long-standing plumbing problems at the elementary school, expanding learning spaces for pre-Kindergarten and high school students and building a new library space that would double as a storm shelter.
Era's school board pitched a similar measure in May, priced at $12.9 million, but it failed to pass by a vote of 130-175 in May.
The newest bond would be paid for with a tax rate increase of 16 cents per $100 of assessed valuation — about $96 per year on a $100,000 property.
Callisburg ISD
Callisburg ISD will also try to pass a bond for the second time this year.
It will be the second bond proposal this year for Callisburg, as a similar measure failed on May 7. The first proposal included replacing many of Callisburg High School's athletic facilities, plus other building improvements, at a cost of $28.5 million.
That May 7 bond pitch by has been pared down in hopes of making it more palatable to voters, according to Superintendent Don Metzler.
The school board voted Aug. 17 to put an $18.6 million measure on the ballot.
"The Board of Trustees determined that the need for many of the items on Proposition A (which included school renovations) were still needed and that the voters were not in favor of building new athletic facilities. They could see by the narrow loss (33 votes) of Proposition A that almost 50% of the voters thought those items were needed," Metzler told the Register at the time. "When it came to the other two propositions, the board could see that the voters were strongly against building new athletic facilities. Based on review of the vote counts, the board could see that possibly renovating current athletic facilities would be a better route to take."
City of Gainesville
Gainesville's $2.8 million bond would fund work to create the quiet zone along the BNSF rail line. The work would would aim at maintaining safety without trains blowing their horns between Cole and Belcher streets. It would include changes to each railroad crossing and the addition of signage, channelized medians and curbs/gutters.
"In order for the trains not to blow their horns, each crossing has to be changed," City Manager Barry Sullivan told the Register back in August. "Cole and McCubbin crossings will be closed. Belcher, Scott, Broadway, California, Main, Garnett and Moss streets will be restriped."
Early voting will end Friday at 5 p.m. at the Cooke County Clerk's office on the courthouse square in downtown Gainesville. Polls for in-person voting will be open Tuesday from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. across Texas.
