By ANNELI FOGT
Editor
Candidates for contested positions on the Vashon Park District board and school board will answer questions from voters in the upcoming weeks, and share their platforms at two separate debates ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
School board candidates will debate on Oct. 1, and park district candidates on Oct. 6. Both debates are sponsored by Voice of Vashon and The Beachcomber and were organized by community activist Hilary Emmer. She has been organizing debates for public office candidates for several years as a way to help the public become informed voters. They will be moderated by Susan McCabe, co-host of Voice of Vashon’s Island Crossroads.
The public will ask all questions at both debates, a move that Emmer says she believes is the most fair.
“Having the public ask is the fairest way to do it because they are the ones that care and the ones that are voting,” Emmer said last week. “My focus is to give a venue to see them and hear them and become informed voters. Each candidate will be a little different, and the public can find out how. I only want informed voters casting their ballot.”
Three school board seats are contested: Dan Chasan and Laura Wishik are incumbents, and Kathy Jones will not seek re-election. Chasan will be vying for his seat against John “Oz” Osborne, a former school board member who did not seek re-election after his term ended in 2009. A May Beachcomber article reported Osborne is a software engineer and college professor.
Jones’ seat is up for grabs by either Jake Jacobovitch or Zabette Macomber, both islanders with experience on Vashon school boards.
Wishik has served two terms on the board and is being challenged by Toby Holmes. Holmes is an island native with children at Chautauqua Elementary and McMurray Middle schools.
In an interview last week, Holmes said that the main issues the new board will be facing are capital planning and facility upgrades. He said that multiple improvements are necessary for the schools and the board will eventually have to ask the public for more money.
“There’s demand (for improvements), but a limited budget,” Holmes said.
The new board will be faced with how to present the requests for improvements in a way that the public understands their value. Macomber seconded Holmes’ comments, and told The Beachcomber that the capital planning and new sports facility plans will “without a doubt” be the largest issue the board will face.
“It will come down to what the entire community wants versus what they want to pay for,” Macomber said.
Macomber also said that testing will likely be an issue that will come up, specifically the amount of testing done at Chautauqua Elementary and McMurray Middle schools. She said that many parents and teachers last spring voiced their frustration over how many tests their students were taking.
“It was the Smarter Balanced, Core curriculum tests,” Macomber said. “Because (the curriculum) is new, there was no standardized test, so they had to rush, and it was a new test. It was very shaky.”
She said that the board will need to figure out what they can do about it without “micro-managing.”
Meanwhile at the park district, seven islanders running for three spots on the Vashon Park District board are expected to attend the Oct. 6 debate, and there is a three-way race among newcomer Peter Ray and incumbents Scott Harvey and Bill Ameling for Position 5. Karen Gardener and Rick Skillman are vying for Position 1, currently held by Ameling, and Bob McMahon and Joshua Weil are in the race for Position 3.
Skillman said last week that the main concern for the district is re-establishing trust between the board and the community. He said that the board needs to work on making their actions “very clear and transparent.” He also said that, moving forward, the ongoing expense of operating the VES fields is a concern. He said that the board will need to straighten out whether or not the operating costs have even been budgeted.
Fellow candidate Ray also expressed concern about the fields, saying that there is “lots unfinished,” and that the water use is “excessive.”
Voters will be able to ask questions about the above mentioned issues as well as any other issues at the respective debates for each board. Each debate will begin with every candidate making an opening statement, followed by roughly an hour and a half of audience questions moderated by McCabe. The candidates will then each make a closing statement.
Two islanders are running for seats on the fire district board, but organizer Emmer said that there will be no debate “for just two candidates.”
Ballots will be mailed on Oct. 14 for the Nov. 3 election. For more information and a voter’s guide, see kingcounty.gov/elections.
The school board candidates forum will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, at the Penny Farcy Building on Bank Road.The park district board forum will be at the same time Tuesday, Oct. 6, in the same building.
