Coweta school

officials will have to find another option to build new schools after

voters narrowly rejected an extension of the special ourpose local option

sales tax Tuesday.

The measure

failed by 98 votes, 3,221 to 3,123. School board member Rick Melville,

who watched the returns come in at the county's administrative complex,

said the vote will really hurt one group in the county.

"I really

feel sorry for the children. That's who this is going to affect the most,"

he said.

Melville couldn't

speculate what the school system's next move would be, but did have a

theory as to why the vote failed.

He said that

Bill Griggers, who represented many of the county's senior citizens, had

pushed for the vote against the tax when the school board failed to offer

seniors any relief on the school portion of their property taxes.

"I think

it's two totally separate issues," Melville said.

The board had

planned to use more than $60 million of the projected $94 million for

new construction, with the balance used to pay off the system's bonds.

In the only

other race on Tuesday's ballot, Cindy Brown defeated candidates in the

race for clerk of the Superior Court.

Brown handily

won election with 3,521 votes. Former Clerk Joan Griffies finished second

with 2,328 votes and political newcomer Wally Metzger finished a distant

third with 478 votes.

After the vote,

Griffies said she would have liked to win, but was not overly upset with

the results.

"I'm proud

of my accomplishments. But, I'm glad this time it was an honest election."

Griffies was

alluding to last July's election that she lost to former assistant clerk

Mary Jane Thompson. Thompson eventually pleaded guilty to taking funds

from the clerk's office and resigned her position.