Tonganoxie USD 464 voters soundly said no to a $26.9 million bond issue Tuesday.

The bond issue, which if passed would have funded a new intermediate school as well as high school and elementary school upgrades, failed with no votes taking about 62 percent of the votes, 1,111-629.

A group opposed to the current bond issue, The Committee for the Kids, organized in the final weeks before the election with the message that the district needed a new elementary school but should not use the proposed plan.

Proponents of the bond issue, the Quality for Kids campaign, contended that renovations at the high school were necessary for security purposes in addition to overcrowding at the elementary school.

The last bond issue, which funded a new middle school and upgrades to the high school and elementary school, passed in 2004. The last bond issue before 2004 was in the late 1980s when a new junior high — now part of the high school campus — was built.