Tooele County voters increased both their property and sales tax in last night’s general county election.
Proposition 1, the local option transportation sales tax, ended the night with a 51-percent favorable vote.
The additional 0.25 percent tax will bring in dollars for city and county road work as well as revenue for the Utah Transit Authority.
Opponents to Proposition 1 in Tooele County criticized the UTA portion of the new tax.
Voters also approved the Tooele County School District’s $49 million bond.
With the bond approved, the school district aims to open two new elementary schools as early as August 2017.
One will be in Stansbury Park by the Benson Gristmill. The other will be built on the site of East Elementary. It will replace both East and Harris Elementary schools.
The district will also build additional classroom space for Tooele Junior High, purchase property for future secondary schools, and make capital improvements at Tooele High School, Grantsville High School, and Grantsville Junior High.
“Voters expressed their confidence in us and our plan,” said Scott Rogers, Tooele County School District superintendent. “Now we will deliver on our promise and follow the plan.”
In Tooele City, voters retained all three incumbents on the ballot for city council.
Brad Pratt will serve a second term, Dave McCall a third and Steve Pruden a fourth.
In Grantsville, incumbent town council member Scott Stice was bumped off the council.
Anti-prison crusaders Krista Sparks and Jewell Allen captured seats on the Grantsville City Council along with incumbent Neil Critchlow, who won a second term.
Seven people vied for three seats on the North Tooele Fire District Board.
The only incumbent on the ballot, Kevin Astill, failed to make the list of winners, receiving only 10 percent of the vote.
The top three vote-getters in the NTFD board race were Ken Aldridge, Rick Pollock and Bryan Larsen.
In Stansbury Park, incumbent Neil Smart, with 54 percent of the vote, won a three-way race for one seat on the Greenbelt Service Agency.
Glenn Oscarson managed to hold onto his seat on the Stansbury Service Agency board with a 14-vote lead over his challenger, Leslie Wanlass.
In Stockton, voters failed to return George Carter to the town council. Instead, Thomas Karjola and Judy Bori won the two open seats.
Lake Point Improvement District voters kept both of their incumbents, Braden Morris and Keith Fryer, on the improvement district board.
Out in Wendover, two Republicans and one Democrat won seats on the city council.
Manuel Carrillo, Democrat, was the top vote-getter among the four candidates for the three four-year seats on the city council.
Republicans Radine Murphy and Gordon Stewart also won seats on the Wendover City council. Stewart was the only incumbent in the race.
Across the county, 6,471 voters turned out for a 24-percent showing of all registered voters. The highest voter turnout rate was 47 percent in Stockton, which votes entirely by mail.
Utah law requires that the governing body of each entity holding an election review the results of the election and inspect the voting process.
This process, which is called canvassing, must take place during a properly-noticed public meeting held between seven and 14 days after the election. The governing body then forwards the election results to the lieutenant governor’s office, which will then certify the election results, making the outcome official, according to Tooele County Clerk/Auditor Marilyn Gillette.
Any mail-in and absentee ballots postmarked the day before the election that arrive at the clerk’s office before the canvass, along with any approved provisional ballots, will be included in the final tally.
Provisional ballots are ballots that could not be counted on election night, but if the clerk’s office is able to clear them before the canvass, they are counted.
The most common reason for a provisional ballot is registered voters who move to a new residence but don’t re-register to vote at their new address, Gillette said.
As of Tuesday night, Gillette was unable to give an exact count of the number of provisional ballots. However, historically provisional ballots and late arriving mail-in ballots follow the general trend of the election and do not change the outcome of an election, she said.