COTA — In a major win for Sawamish County students, the Cota School District Levy has passed by a razor-thin 1.2% margin. The victory comes after a strategic campaign to win over conservative voters by hinting at a curriculum focused on the local timber industry.
While neighbors like the Clifton School District and South Sawamish School District saw much less success, Cota’s levy was also expected to fail until a late-stage “Vocational Forestry” initiative mobilized rural voters.
District leaders posted a Facebook poll to the district page asking if the community would approve the levy if the district looked into a new program offering certifications in professional logging and timber management. The poll was a hit, with over 78% of Facebook votes saying “yes.”
No plan was promised, nor has any legitimate effort been made into producing such a program. Only time will tell if the district truly intended to act on the poll, or if it was just a careless post from an intern.
Regardless of the lack of action, high-density GOP precincts in rural Sawamish County, which typically oppose school taxes, saw a 14% increase in “Yes” votes compared to the last cycle. Local news and social media groups framed the school as a “workforce pipeline” for local industry rather than just an academic institution as a coordinated effort to sway the right-leaning voters in the rural areas of the community.
“We in Sawamish County want to see our tax dollars converted into jobs,” said Cota local Benjamin Dover. “Teaching the next generation how to cut timber as my dad before me is the only way we’re going to get these kids off the streets.”
With no word on whether or not the district plans to implement any logging-focused programs remains a question on all of our minds. That said, we can rest easy knowing that our students will have toilet paper and trash bags for the next few years.
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