Measure M passes; one school race undecided

School facilities managers for Madera Unified School were all smiles Wednesday morning when the unofficial results of Tuesday’s election revealed that the voters had approved Measure M, the $120 million school bond issue, by a whopping 61.29 percent. The affirmative vote total was 7,930 against 5,008 negative tallies (38.71 percent)

Madera Unified will now be able to address the severe student overpopulation by constructing its concurrent middle school and two new elementary schools. It will also be able to renovate parts of some of the older schools.

The election also brought good news to Joetta Flores Fleak, who garnered 58 percent of the vote in the Area 4 race for the Madera Unified school board. She defeated incumbent Philip Huerta, who received 42 percent. The vote totals were 769 for Fleak and 557 for Huerta.

The race for MUSD’s Area 5 seat was not as clear-cut. In that contest, Lucy Salazar, with 50.54 percent of the vote held a slight lead over Steve Duncan who got 49.46 percent. Just 19 votes separate the two contestants. Whoever wins this race will replace Al Galvez who resigned his seat earlier for family health reasons.

In Chowchilla High School District’s Area 4 race, incumbent Mike Cargill won overwhelmingly with 61.12 percent of the vote over Debra Haworth, who received 38.88 percent. Cargill’s vote total was 305 while Haworth garnered 194 tallies. The vote totals are unofficial.