Firelight water and sewer fails by one vote, recount requested
By Jack Reaney ASSOCIATE EDITOR
When an election is decided by a small handful of votes, it crystallizes the importance of every single ballot. Big Sky just experienced a one-vote decision, and pending a recount, it’s looking like a lesson learned the hard way.
In the May 7 mail-only local election, residents of Big Sky’s Firelight Meadows neighborhood saw a special question about the potential creation of a water and sewer district to help improve failing wastewater treatment infrastructure in the 216-door subdivision.
Despite the initial interpretation of unofficial results by county officials that suggested the initiative would pass, it ultimately failed by a single vote, according to official results verified Monday by the Gallatin County Board of Canvassers.
Not a single voter disapproved of creating a Firelight water and sewer district. The ballot item received 107 votes in favor, and zero votes against.
However, state law requires at least 40% of qualified voters to vote in favor. With 268 qualified voters from Firelight Meadows, the 107 favorable votes equate to 39.925%—just one favorable vote shy of 40%.
After Election Manager Jasmine Hall announced the initiative had failed, Gallatin County Commissioner Jennifer Boyer asked the key question.
“We don’t round up?”
“There’s no rounding,” said Eric Semerad, Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder and Election Administrator. “This is a threshold that has to be surpassed, and we can’t really deal with fuzzy numbers when we’re creating a district that is going to be able to do bonds and things like that.”
Hall said one additional voter did submit a ballot, but that ballot did not register for or against the initiative. If that 108th ballot included a “Yes” on the Firelight question, the initiative would have passed, Hall and Semerad confirmed.
“Such a great illustration of the power of voting,” Boyer said.
“One vote,” Hall said.
Brown said he’s never seen such a tight race that involved unanimous support from voters.
“You almost wish we could just approve it anyway, because we know the will of the community is completely behind this,” said Gallatin County Commissioner Zach Brown.
Karen Macklin, a Firelight resident leading the effort, gave public comment at Monday’s canvass meeting. She said the Firelight Meadows community will be heartbroken but thanked the commission for their support and feedback.
“What is our next step,” Macklin asked. “Are we still able to ask for a recount to figure out that one undervote?”
Semerad answered yes.
“It’s unusual because you’re not really recounting whether it passed or not, it’s whether everybody voted or not, I guess,” Semerad explained. “We’re just basically looking at that one [108th] ballot to see if there was anything about that ballot that indicated that they voted for the issue and it just didn’t read in the machine.”
Most likely, he added, the Firelight community will need to try again next year. He recalled a very similar situation from two years ago as the community of Logan tried to create water and sewer district.
“Similar situation, but it was not this close two years ago,” Semerad said. It passed in the following election.
Across Gallatin County for all the school and special purpose districts, the overall voter turnout was 28.38%, according to the presentation by Semerad and Hall.
Jennings, McClain win Big Sky School District seats; voters approve levy
The Board of Canvassers confirmed official results from the school and special purpose district elections.
For the Big Sky School District, board member Matt Jennings won reelection with 428 votes.
Danielle McClain will join the school board, after receiving 475 votes.
Maren Dunn and John McGuire did not earn seats. Dunn received 335 votes, and McGuire received 270. Matt Kidd withdrew weeks before the election, but was required to remain on the ballot and received 73 votes.
In a separate ballot item, voters decided on a school district general fund levy.
The levy proposed to increase BSSD’s operational budget by $65,000 to support teacher salary and benefits, adding an annual property tax impact of 82 cents per $100,000 of property value, according to Corky Miller, school district business manager.
The levy passed, earning 546 votes in favor to outweigh 315 votes against.
“We are grateful to the community for supporting our levy in the amount of $65,000,” BSSD Superintendent Dustin Shipman wrote in a statement to EBS. He specified that the levy will be used for operational expenses related to increases in salaries to district teachers. “Without the support of the community in elections such as this, our public school would have difficulties.”
Biggerstaff joins water and sewer district board, Fast and Wilcynski reelected
For the Big Sky County Water and Sewer District, board members Dick Fast and Mike Wilcynski won reelection with 353 and 285 votes, respectively.
Jerad Biggerstaff received 310 votes, and joins the water and sewer district board.
Kent Volosin was not elected, receiving 186 votes.
Germain, Young remain on Resort Tax board; Zirkle elected
For the Big Sky Resort Area District, board members Kevin Germain and Grace Young earned reelection, with 530 and 537 votes, respectively.
John Zirkle received 665 votes, and joins the BSRAD board.
Laura Seyfang and Landon Weight were not elected. Seyfang earned 485 votes, and Weight received 137.
