For a few hours, Madison Area Technical College students, administrators, facility members and one mascot forgot about Republicans, Democrats, Tea Partiers and other election night drama and watched as citizens in 12 counties voted to increase their taxes to pay for MATC’s expansion.
The $133,770,000 referendum was approved with a 59 percent vote, as of press time.
MATC President Bettsey Barhorst said the college is delighted and grateful to all the voters in our district for passing the referendum.
Barhorst said she was surprised the referendum passed by such a wide margin.
“Considering the difficult times we are in, we thought it would be very close,” Barhorst said. “That being said, we know we have a good story to tell, and we have touched the lives of thousands of people in the district.”
The referendum passing means residents in Madison will pay around $33 more in taxes each year for the next 20 years.
The money will be used to build several new education centers on campus, including a health services building, protective services building and an advanced manufacturing center. The referendum will also update existing facilities on campus to allow students to work with the most up to date technology in their fields.
Barhorst said they will begin construction on the new facilities by July 1 of next year. She added the construction on the college campus will act like a local stimulus because they always make an effort to higher local contractors with competitive bids.
Election night party guests at MATC could see real time updates from the counties voting in the election thanks to a new program developed at the college, according to Roger Price, vice president of infrastructure services.
“Our tech department set up a program which goes into the county’s websites and puts all of their data into one document,” Price said.
Price said the program ran really smoothly except for one county changing their websites format right before the election. Price said they fixed the problem by just manually inserting the counties’ numbers into their program.
The referendum passing will have a positive impact on MATC and on the surrounding communities, Barhorst said.
The new facilities will allow the college to reduce waiting lists and take on more students, Barhorst said. She added the college will also be able to provide skilled workers to fill jobs throughout the community.
In another referendum, Dane County voters strongly showed their support for a state law which would allow patients with debilitating medical conditions to receive medicinal marijuana.
The referendum passed by 75 percent of the county as of press time, and while it is only an advisory vote, it shows strong support for the law.
Gary Storck, spokesperson for Dane County Medical Marijuana Advisory Referendum Campaign Committee, said the group feels great about the win.
“I was pleasantly surprised by the 75 percent…I was surprised to see it go that high, especially on a bad night when many progressive candidates lost,” Storck said. “It really showed medical marijuana has a lot of bipartisan support.”
Storck said their next move is to find out who their friends are with the newly elected candidates and start moving toward getting a bill passed in the state Legislature.
However, he did say they facing a completely new situation with Governor-Elect Scott Walker, a Republican, since much of the support for the law in the past has come from Democrats.
