CROSS RIVER, N.Y. - In a stunning rebuke, Katonah-Lewisboro School District voters this week narrowly rejected a plan to turn the former Lewisboro Elementary School into a site for universal pre-kindergarten programs.
By two dozen votes, residents vetoed a proposed $24.5 million bond to finance the LES renovations even as they readily approved both the district’s $131.8 million budget for next year and an associated spending question.
In the Tuesday (May 19) balloting, voters also returned incumbents Lorraine Gallagher and Bill Swertfager to three-year seats on the school board and chose Stacey Isaacson to finish more than two years remaining in a departed trustee’s term.
The proposed bond to renovate LES, a beloved South Salem elementary school from 1940 until its controversial closing in 2014, was defeated by less than a percentage point, 1,431 to 1,407. The vote scuttles for now a bold plan to resurrect the building as a site for universal pre-K and community activities.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is pressing to make pre-K available free to 4-year-olds in every school district statewide by the 2028–29 school year. With only minor changes, both the state Senate and Assembly voted in this session to back Hochul’s effort.
Proposition 3, the LES bond’s designation on the ballot, had encountered pushback both at community meetings and in social media communications. Still, KLSD officials appeared surprised as well as clearly disappointed by the electoral rebuff.
Speaking in the moments after the bond’s defeat was announced, Gallagher, who had led a school board/community panel assessing the future of LES, said she was "very disappointed" by the outcome, calling it "a very sad day for our community."
Superintendent Ray Blanch said there were no immediate plans to resubmit the bond proposal.
In early and unofficial returns, Swertfager, with 1,625, votes topped a field of five candidates for three school board seats. He was followed by Gallagher, the board’s president, with 1,589 votes. Both were completing their first three-year terms on the board.
Drawing 1,327 votes, Isaacson outpolled Melissa Dilmaghani (1,242) and Nancy Bachana (903) to capture the seat vacated last month by Trustee Jon Poffenberger. Isaacson was expected to be seated at the Thursday (May 21) school board meeting.
Under KLSD’s at-large balloting, the top two vote-getters won three-year terms, starting July 1, and the third highest, Isaacson, immediately assumed Poffenberger’s vacant seat. She will serve in Poffenberger’s stead until June 30, 2028.
Next year’s $131,816,402 budget came with painful economies, including losing the equivalent of 11 full-time positions, to stay within the state’s mandated limit on tax-levy increases. Voters approved it, 1,942 to 885.
Proposition 2 authorized district officials to spend funds already on-hand to improve athletic fields and track. It passed, 1,979 to 851.
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