College annexation fails by wide margin

By Randy Grider
randy@casscounty.com

On a night with record voter turnout, opponents of a proposal to annex much of Cass County into the Texarkana College taxing district won a resounding victory -- defeating the proposition 7,251 - 1,965. 
While 78 percent of the voters rejected measure, which included Atlanta, Queen City, Bloomburg, McLeod and Linden-Kildare School school districts, TC President James Russell said the college remains committed to educating students in the area.
“Texarkana College would like to thank the residents of Cass County for considering our annexation measure at the polls today,” President James Henry Russell said, following the Nov. 8 election . “Though voters in the area chose not to join the TC district, the College remains committed to moving the needle toward a college-going culture in Cass County and our region.”
If the measure had passed, students living within the school districts would have saved money by paying paid in-district tuition. TC also had committed to operating a $4 million campus in Atlanta offering vocational certification classes. Property owners would have been accessed tax of $.11 per $100 of appraised property valuation to pay for the program.
“Now that Cass County voters have opted to maintain out-of-district status, TC will continue to partner with area school districts to offer dual credit courses,” Russell said. “We will continue to provide accessible and affordable options for college and career training throughout our service area, as TC has done since 1927.”
Over the last few months a group of voters who opposed raising property taxes became more vocal. This anti-property tax increase sentiment has also expressed in the Linden-Kildare CISD.
Voters within the L-K CISD rejected an $8 million bond package by 1,370 to 847 votes.
County Clerk Jamie O’Rand said that close to 12,000 voters participated in the election, or 63 percent of registered voters. This, she said, is likely a new record for the county.