A win is a win, no matter the margin of victory, say the co-chairs of a local campaign in support of school bonds.
“We do not target specific vote percentages,” Abbas Ravjani and Kari Garcia told ARLnow as they continued to promote the $80 million school bond, one of five local bond referendums on the county’s Nov. 3 ballot.
Typically, school bonds are the only type of local referendum to have the backing of an organized effort. Decades ago, the bond committee used to be co-chaired by a Democrat and a Republican for political balance. In more recent years, however, the Arlington GOP has stayed neutral or, in this case, opposed the school bond in addition to others on the ballot.
Two years ago, the most recent school bond on the ballot passed with 77.6% of county voters in support. Ravjani and Garcia said they weren’t focused on beating that number.
“Our goal is to achieve strong, broad-based support from the community,” they said. “We want to ensure every resident understands what this bond funds and why it matters for Arlington’s schools.”
The bulk of the school-bond funding — $60 million in total — aims to support improvements at Oakridge and Jamestown elementary schools, focused on the development of geothermal wells to cut electricity costs. The remaining $20 million will support countywide maintenance.
Pro-bond forces have been placing campaign signs in the public right-of-way and encouraging supporters to put them in their yards. The Arlington GOP’s effort to oppose the measure will be focused on handing out the party’s sample ballot at the polls.
One has to go all the way back to November 1973 to find the last time voters rejected a county school bond. That year, a $2.35 million measure was narrowly defeated, with 14,847 in favor and 15,834 opposed, according to a county database of election results.
Voters appeared to be suffering from fatigue over the number of referendums on the ballot in the early 1970s. The school bond was one of nine local questions sent out to voters in 1973, and one of two to be defeated.
Two years later, voters rejected a school-related referendum, turning down a $1.3 million proposal to construct a county/school auditorium facility at what then was Washington-Lee High School.
Since 1975, however, all school-related bond measures have passed, typically with margins of 65% or more. They seldom win either the highest or lowest pass rates, but sit somewhere in the middle.
With the 2026 school bond having support of the Arlington County Democratic Committee, passage is all but assured. But “we never take voter support for granted,” the bond co-chairs said.
Other local referendums on the Nov. 3 ballot include a $69.75 million bond for Metro funding and other transportation projects, a $34.95 million bond for local parks, a $58.83 million bond for community infrastructure and a $20.75 million bond for utilities.
