"We have provisional and we have ballots that were turned in yesterday. We need 11 votes at the present time. But we don't know how many are out there.so yep, there's still always hope," Selma City Manager D-B Heusser said.
But a day after the election, the measure is separated by ten votes and the Fresno County Clerk has provisional ballots from across the county to count.
"The city of Selma's looking at about 11 percent turnout, they had 8,300 registered voters and about 1,000 of them are on the vote tally right now." Fresno County Clerk-Recorder Brandi Orth said.
If passed the Transient Occupancy Tax, or TOT, would raise the tax from six percent to 12 percent. Something city leaders say is on par with what the cities of Kingsburg and Fresno along Highway 99 charge.
"The residents of Selma would not be paying for. These are people that are traveling back and forth that would pay that. To do anything, we'll have to either cut back or not do things that were maybe planned," Heusser said.
Hessuer said the city would use the funds for various programs, including paying for services guests use like fire or police. The passage of Measure K would have brought in an additional $200,000 and while Fresno County elections officials tally the last of the votes. Leaders say this tight race will come down to the last ballots.
"That's why for voters every vote does counts. It's really important that you get out the vote," Orth said.
We will know the final results when they are released by the Fresno County elections office on Friday.
