By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
While the big news out of Monday night’s meeting of the East Troy School Board was the unanimous vote of board members in attendance to draft new facility needs referendum questions for the April 7 ballot, Tuesday morning saw one School Board members tendering his resignation.
Chris Smith, who was not at Monday night’s meeting or last week’s special working referendum meeting, submitted his resignation in an email Monday night to board President Ted Zess and the board.
The one-paragraph letter from Smith said, “Please accept my letter of resignation effective immediately. With a new job and growing family I must concentrate on my family and career first. I am proud of serving the community and School District and wish everyone the best of luck in their future endeavors.”
Zess said Tuesday morning he was sorry to lose Smith on the board, but understood the reasons why Smith chose to leave.
The timing of Smith’s resignation creates some unique issues for the district because of the upcoming election and referendum.
District Administrator Chris Hibner said Tuesday morning that he asked Smith to reconsider the timing of his exit and stay on for a little bit longer because he had all the background needed to do the job at this time.
As of press time, Smith had responded to Hibner’s request.
If Smith does not change his mind, the School Board will have to appoint someone to fill the position.
Hibner said because the resignation was tendered after the last Tuesday in November and before the spring election with a member who is not in the last year of his term, an interim board member will have to be appointed to serve until the Spring 2016 General Election.
The board position will be on the ballot at that time, but it won’t be for a full three-year term. Whoever is elected in April of 2016 will only serve the final year of Smith’s term. If they want to remain on the board, they will have to run again in 2017, which is when Smith would have run for re-election.
“We would have three people up in 2016,” Hibner said. “We usually have 2-2-1 elections for School Board members, so what would happen that year is the two candidates that receive the highest votes would be allowed to fill the regular terms and the candidate who received the third highest will serve until the end of Chris’ term, so they would have to run again in 2017 if they wanted to stay on the board.”
Hibner said the first step in the process to appoint a new member will be the board officially announcing the resignation then the board members will have to set a timeline for people to submit a Declaration of Interest for Candidacy.
Hibner said Zess would probably announce the resignation at the special working referendum meeting set for 5 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 19. Then the issue would be placed on the Jan. 26 agenda for discussion and action by the board.
Once the board sets the timeline for applications, residents can submit their Declarations of Interest.
After the deadline has passed for application, the board has the option of asking interested parties to come in for an interview before they make their final decision.
Because the School Board race is requiring a Feb. 17 primary for the Spring Election, Hibner said he would recommend to the board that they not fill the open position until after the primary election because it might give the appearance that the board was endorsing a certain candidate if one of the candidates for the School Board race decided to apply for Smith’s position.
