Voters shoot down juvenile center levy

SANDPOINT — A proposal to build a new juvenile detention center using a two-year override levy was brutally mugged at the polls on Tuesday.

With 29 of Bonner County’s 33 voting precincts tallied, only 589 people cast ballots in favor of the measure. As of press time, 1,878 people voted against the proposal.

Broken down into percentages, 76 percent of those voting opposed the levy, while just 23 percent supported it.

The final tally is published in the elections section of Bonner County’s Web site (www.co.bonner.id.us).

Voter turnout — less than 13 percent at last count — fell well below the expectations of Clerk Marie Scott.

“I was expecting a huge turnout because this is going to effect people’s property taxes. I prepared for a 75-percent turnout,” Scott said.

The county set an absentee ballot record during the 2008 general election, when more than 5,000 people voted absentee. Scott said there were only about 300 absentee ballots cast as of Tuesday afternoon.

Scott said early reports from poll workers suggested turnout was going to be slight.

“All we’re hearing from the precincts is that it’s slow,” she said.

center and administrative offices on the grounds of the sheriff’s office. It would have replaced an outmoded 12-bed juvenile lockup operating under a grace period from the state.

Bonner County officials emphasized that transporting juveniles to a regional detention facility in Kootenai County would cost taxpayers up to a $1 million annually.