If you haven’t mailed in your ballot for the Nov. 7 election, you should consider hand-delivering it.
The Montezuma County Clerk’s Office deadline for voters to request a ballot be mailed to them was Monday, Oct. 30, and ballots are due back to the clerk by Nov. 7.
The clerk’s office recommends that from this point on, ballots be dropped off to avoid any issues with the mail, according to an email to The Journal from Clerk Kim Percell.
The clerk’s office is at 140 W. Main St., on the northeast corner of North Elm and Main streets.
According to Percell, just 22 percent of Cortez Re-1’s 11,609 active registered voters had returned ballots as of Nov. 1.
In Cortez, 633 ballots were undeliverable because of outdated voter registration addresses.
This year’s election is all about education, with school board races in Cortez and Dolores and mill levies in Cortez and Mancos.
If approved by voters in the Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 School District, ballot question 3B would give the school district permission to raise property taxes and spend about $2.7 million in 2018 and continue spending indefinitely “by whatever amounts are generated annually thereafter by an additional mill levy of 4.96 mills.”
The ballot question states that the revenue would “be deposited in the general fund of the district and used for educational purposes as approved by the board of education,” including new buses, technology and increased salaries, according to the official ballot.
Also on the ballot, challengers seek to unseat two members of the Montezuma-Cortez Board of Education.
Tiffany Cheney is challenging Brian Balfour to represent School District A. Geof Byerly is challenging current board member Sherri Noyes in District F.
John Schuenemeyer and Kara Suckla are running unopposed in Districts B and G, respectively.
The board has replaced the retiring Pete Montano with Tammy Hooten in District E. Sherri Wright’s board seat in District C is not up for election this term.
Josiah Forkner is running unopposed in School District D, vacated by the retirement of Eric Whyte.
There is no statewide ballot measure this election.
