La Crosse School District holding news conference at 10 am, as $194.7 million referendum fails; Holmen, Onalaska, Bangor passed

The $194.7 million consolidation plan by the La Crosse School District has been voted down.

The plan to build a new high school on the south side, and convert Logan and Central into middle schools received just 30.9 percent of the vote.

The referendum was voted down by 10,442 votes of 27,304 cast.

The plan to build to consolidate La Crosse down to one high school, converting Logan and Central into middle schools, at the cost of $194.7 million was easily voted down Tuesday.

The La Crosse School District’s plan received just 30.9 percent of just over 27,000 votes cast.

The La Crosse School District announced earlier that it will discuss the outcome of the referendum vote at a 10 a.m. news conference Wednesday, talking about “the next steps forward regardless of today’s outcome.”

A couple other area school referendum results did pass.

Both Onalaska and Holmen had to ask taxpayers for funding that’s come up short from the state Legislature, and all four questions in the two towns passed.

Onalaska had asked for an operating budget referendum — something it’s been requesting from voters since 2006 — as well as a $75 million capital/facilities referendum.

Both requests passed with around 60 percent of the vote.

In Holmen, with nearly identical measures, both the operations and $75 million capital/facilities measure passed.

The operational referendum (question 1) received 57.9 percent of the 8,252 votes cast. The $75 million capital referendum got 61 percent of the 8,248 votes.

Voters in the Village of Holmen have also passed a measure to, what the town’s website says, hire 4-5 more police officers and 5-6 more firefighters/EMTs per shift.

That tax impact for residents is $276 for a $200,000 home. The measure passed with 66.7 percent of the vote — 4,551 people cast votes.

Bangor’s $24 million school facilities measure has passed with 61.8 percent of the 1,800 votes cast.