Mt. Hood Community College voters approve bond after rejecting 6 previous requests

Voters in the

Mt. Hood Community College

district have finally approved a bond to pay for improvements at the Gresham-based campus after rejecting the past six bond requests from the district.

Returns

as of Friday afternoon

, showed the bond passing with 50.16% of the vote – or a 131-vote margin.

Despite the slim margin, there does not appear to be a path for the results to change. Election officials in Multnomah and Clackamas counties said Friday that the only ballots left to be counted were ones that needed signature verification or were postmarked Tuesday but haven’t yet arrived at election offices.

“As voters continue to cure their signature challenges we will process and count their votes,” Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott wrote in an email. “The deadline to cure signature challenges is June 10. We may see a few additional ballots come in on Tuesday with valid postmarks but it won’t be very many.”

Scott said the 131-vote margin also put the bond well outside the 0.2% margin that triggers an automatic recount. Currently, that margin would be 84 votes. “So, unless things change dramatically there will not be an automatic recount,” Scott wrote.

College officials pitched the $136 million bond as a “no-frills” ask to meet critical needs. It will add a tax of about 25 cents to every $1,000 of assessed home value and will cost the average homeowner about $60 a year.

The bond will pay for much needed improvements including earthquake retrofitting and updating original heating, cooling and wiring systems in buildings erected in 1970.

In addition to nuts-and-bolts upgrades, the bond will cover a retractable dome over the college’s outdoor pool — allowing community members to swim all year — and will renovate labs, bring the college’s health programs under one roof and create new student activity areas in the Gresham academic center.

It has been 50 years since the college last secured a bond from voters in the Mt. Hood Community College district, which spans a

sprawling stretch

of east Portland, Gresham, Troutdale and Sandy to the

eastern

slopes of Mount Hood.

The current bond had appeared headed for defeat on election night, but those results changed as county elections offices released updated results later in the week.

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