YISD trustees vote to send bond to November elections

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Wednesday evening Ysleta school district trustees approved a $430 million bond proposal that it will send to the voters.

Teachers, principals and members of the Bond Advisory Committee, who drafted the proposal, stood up and cheered when as the vote was read out.

Their work is far from over, though. Now they have to convince voters who rejected a bond proposal earlier this year to approve the new one in November.

The vote was 5 to 1. Trustee Paul Pearson was not in attendance and Trustee Ana Duenez voted against the bond saying she didn’t have enough information in front her to approve the proposal. Duenez also voted against the previous bond proposal.

The district says the $430 million bond is needed to improve its aging schools including rebuilding Eastwood High School and building a new Bel Air Middle School.

The proposal would also pay for new artificial turf at all high school football stadiums.

The new bond proposal comes in at $21 million less than last May’s bond proposal.

ABC-7 asked District Superintendent Xavier De La Torre why he thinks this bond will pass:

“Since then we’ve conducted a survey that indicates there was a need for more information. There was a lot of misunderstanding in the community. One of the things we learned for example was that 50 percent of the people that apposed the last bond were unaware of the 20 percent homestead exemption. They were unaware of the fact that taxes are frozen for citizens that are 65 years of age or older,” said De La Torre.

De La Torre tells ABC-7 last year he was the one relaying information on the bond. This time around he says they’ll have new methods to deliver that information to district residents saying it will be about working smarter not harder.