the results are in.......

The results of the BOE campaign are in and my much better half is not going to be spending 22 Mondays at public BOE meetings plus goodness knows how much other time as a BOE member.  It’s a win for me and the kids and dogs, but I believe a bit of a loss for Aspen.

With voter turnout of 36% the results were as follows

Jonathan Nickell               1,540     26%

Katy Frisch                           1,505     26%

Jim Pomeroy                      921         16%

John Galambos                  829         14%

Bettina Slusar                     697         12%

Patsy Kurkulis                    401         6.8%

I want to congratulate Katy and Jonathan.  It’s great to have two new BOE members who both have business chops and MBAs from Booth and HBS respectively.  Hopefully they will feel comfortable really digging into the budget and see if they can find some efficiencies they can reallocate towards teacher salaries.  Also given their experience managing lots of people, I expect to see them hire an excellent superintendent.  I wish you two and the rest of the board much success.

Some interesting things happened in this election.  The local democratic party didn’t endorse anyone (the GOP endorsed Nickell).  Likewise the Aspen teachers union (well they aren’t a union it’s the Aspen Education Association) didn’t endorse.  In Denver, all the candidates endorsed by the teachers union won,  changing the complexion of the board significantly.  The Aspen Daily News also didn’t endorse anyone.  I find it a little weird for them to all sit this out.  Also Mr. Nickell as the big winner picked up just under 11% of the total registered voters.  And this is with mail in ballots---I fear a bit for our democracy with such low voter turnout.

I also suspect that prop CC which would have overturned parts of TABOR motivated some more traditional GOP voters to get out and vote.  In Aspen CC was approved by 66% of the vote, while in the last presidential election Clinton won 70% of the vote.  Looks like the Dems didn’t do as good a Get out the vote operation as they did in 2016.  Prop CC failed state wide which might serve as a useful reminder to Dems that people hate taxes (although they want better funded schools and infrastructure spend).  It all feels a bit like a high school election where the most popular kids win especially,  if they promise shorter school days, longer recess and more desserts in the cafeteria.

I am excited to watch Nickell, Frisch and the rest of the school board have a positive impact on the ASD.  I am also really proud of my wife’s willingness to ask questions that should be asked (like 3^rd grade reading performance, out of whack expenses, teacher morale and turnover).  Clearly, asking those questions directly created some consternation and personal blowback on her, but she has a thick enough skin to ignore that silliness.  And by shining sunlight on those questions they will become much harder to ignore which will improve ASD.  

Now I gotta go pick up some yard signs.

And I am driving to steamboat with 3 13 year olds for some puck--the next post should write itself if I survive.