Twice in the past five years, supermajorities of voters have turned down proposals to build new high school baseball and softball fields in Louisburg, Kansas, home of the Wildcats. The school board had no intention of asking again. Its new plan was to fund a scaled-down version of the project by entering into a 10-year, $4 million lease-purchase agreement with First Option Bank. Adding in interest, the fields would cost about $4.8 million. Unlike proposals before it, though, the annual payments of more than $400,000 would be funded entirely through the school district’s capital outlay budget, meaning construction wouldn’t require a property tax hike. But 568 people signed a protest petition that was filed with the Miami County clerk in July — more than twice the threshold of Louisburg voters necessary to trigger a referendum vote on whether the project can proceed.
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