STRONGSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:           William R. Steffen

Telephone:        440.572.7127

Date:                December 18, 2012

On Tuesday, December 18, 2012, at 10:00am, police officers from Berea, Elyria, Lakewood, North Ridgeville, Westlake, and Strongsville arrived at Strongsville High School with ten specially trained dogs that are employed to detect narcotics and other illegal substances. The dogs examined randomly selected areas of the high school campus that included book bags, classrooms, lockers, restrooms, and the parking lot. In an effort to send the message that illegal activity will not be tolerated, Mr. William Steffen, the high school principal, initiated this search, the second one this school year. Random searches will continue throughout the year.

“I’m pleased there were no arrests made. Using specially trained dogs discourages students from bringing illegal substances and weapons into the school,” said Steffen.

Mark Smithberger, Assistant Principal, said school officials were “very pleased with the cooperation of the students and the staff during the search.”

Posting Date:  11/8/12 

What is the process to certifying the passage of the Bond Issue?

We know this is very confusing however the Ohio Revised code and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections will guide the process from here.

First of all, we received 11,222 votes for the issue and 11,194 against the issue in Cuyahoga County.  We have a small section of Lorain County as part of our District from which we received 7 votes for the issue and 32 votes against the issue.  The net total is now 11,229 for the issue and 11,226 against the issue.  The bond issue is currently passing by 3 votes.

PROVISIONAL BALLOTS

As of 11/7/12 there are 698 provisional ballots cast in the Strongsville precincts.  This information can be found on the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections webpage at http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/home.aspx where the election results are available in different sort options as well as the provisional ballot summary.  The number from Lorain County will not be posted and attempts to find out this information have not been successful.  By law, these ballots cannot be counted until 10 days after the election which will be 11/17/12.  Because this is a Saturday I do not know if that is the day they will count them or if the Board of Elections will choose another date to count those votes.  It is likely that not all of these ballots will count as some people may not provide the necessary information, they never registered or registered late.

Provisional ballots are cast when a voter’s name is not on the list.  This could be for a variety of reasons such as the voter recently moved into the area, their name has changed recently or they may have requested an absentee ballot and did NOT send it in and decided to go to the poll to vote.  There are many requirements that go along with provisional ballots that can be found on the webpage for the Board of Elections.

RECOUNT

Once the provisional votes are added to the previous totals the Board of Elections must determine if the margin between “FOR” and “AGAINST” is more than one half of one percent of the total votes cast.  That margin will be around 115 votes.  Since ours is so close we most likely will have a mandatory recount.  That cannot take place until 5 days after the next regular Board of elections meeting on November 26^th, so the earliest the recount can happen will be 12/3/12. 

These dates can be pushed back due to other factors beyond our control, however this is the best information we have at this point.  We will continue to update you as we receive more information.

Thank You for your support.