The Nov. 4 election day is less than two months away but campaigners haven’t put up signs supporting Measure M, an item on the upcoming ballot that proposes a general obligation facilities bond of $28.5 million for the Hollister School District.
The Measure M Campaign Committee is planning a softer operation to promote the facilities bond using mailers, phone banks and door-to-door visits to neighborhood houses, but no signs.
“I don’t think signs help these kind of campaigns. I think signs are very good for candidates and names. With bond measures, it takes a little more education,” said Connell Lindh, the campaign consultant hired by the committee. “With bond measures, you need to educate on the need and you can’t do that with a sign.”
Hollister School District trustees in June approved a resolution to place the bond on the Nov. 4 ballot and since that decision, the school district has not been allowed to advocate for the measure. The Measure M Campaign Committee took up that task and must raise its own funds to cover campaign costs.
Lindh is pushing for campaigning to pick up right before the release of the vote-by-mail ballots, about a month before the official election day. In California, voters can opt to become permanent vote-by-mail voters, meaning that a large number of votes can be cast weeks before the official election day, Lindh said.
He suggested the committee fundraise a budget of about $40,000 for campaigning.
Lindh is not concerned that the measure follows the nearby San Benito High School District’s $42.5 million general obligation facilities bond, which was approved by voters in June.
“It’s not that uncommon to have two different school districts, so I think we just need to convey that it’s about the elementary and the middle schools. That it has nothing to do with the high school,” he said. “If we went out of our way to explain that, we’d kind of lose our focus about what’s important with the bond.”
But for Measure M Campaign Committee Co-chair and Hollister School District Trustee Patricia Moore, explaining that the bond that just passed was for the high school district and gives no funding to the local elementary and middle schools is critical.
“I want to make sure people in the community understand that it’s for the elementary and middle schools and that it’s not more money for the high school,” Moore said.
The committee, which first began meeting in mid-August, will host its next meeting at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 16 in the meeting room at San Benito YMCA located at 351 Tres Pinos Road, #201. The group meets to discuss how to share information about the bond with potential voters, how to get parents interested in the bond and how to raise funds for the campaign.
For more information, email Moore at pa*******@sb*******.net or call (831) 265-7328.
