By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Community School District Board of Education set a timeline Monday night to fill the board seat vacated by Chris Smith earlier this month.
The board voted to begin accepting applications immediately and close out the application process on Friday, Feb. 6. The board will meet Feb. 9 and decide how to proceed with the selection process at that time.
Complicating matters is the upcoming primary election on Feb. 17 for the School Board seat held by Martha Bresler. Bresler is being challenged by newcomers Jody Heimos and Gina Dingman.
District Administrator Chris Hibner, who wasn’t at the meeting, but sent a memo to the board members, suggested the board hold off choosing a replacement for Smith before the primary election, to avoid the appearance of the board endorsing one candidate over another since Board President Ted Zess had been made aware of at least one of the candidates on the ballot was interested in applying for Smith’s former seat.
Board member Dawn Buchholtz said she didn’t think it was a good idea to wait that long to fill the seat when the district is going to referendum for the fourth time April 7 to address the district’s facility needs.
“I don’t understand the delay,” Buchholtz said. “We have two months before the referendum to get a yes-yes vote. Not just a yes vote, but a yes-yes. We’ve had three failed referendums.”
Zess and board member Steve Lambrechts said they were concerned about the appearances and that voting to fill the seat before the primary would look bad and possibly give the impression the board was endorsing a candidate in the election.
Buchholtz said Hibner’s memo included three suggestions of former School Board members, including Mike Zei who lost his board seat to Smith in the April 2014 election, with the background and experience to immediately fill the position and they should be contacting them to see if they were interested. The other two former board members suggested were: WAITING ON NAME AND WAITING ON NAME.
“Any of these three would be excellent choices,” Buchholtz said. “I think to drag this out is a mistake; we have other things to attend to.”
“I think if one of the candidates puts their name in and gets picked, it looks bad,” Zess reiterated.
“It’s terrible timing,” Lambrechts said. “But I agree with Ted.”
Bresler said she thought they were “muddying the waters” and they should be able to come to an agreement, but she was surprised that one of the candidate on the ballot had said they were going to apply for the open board position as well.
A motion was made by Buchholtz to open the application process, close it Feb. 6 and appoint a replacement board member on Feb. 9. There was no second to the motion with Bresler abstaining because of her candidacy in the election and Zess and Lambrechts staying silent.
Zess then made a motion to open the processes immediately, close it Feb. 20 and have the board vote Feb. 23 on a replacement candidate. This motion failed because there was no majority vote with Zess and Lambrects voting yes, Buchholtz voting no and Bresler abstaining.
After more discussion Bresler suggested the solution to the stalemate would be to vote to open the process, close it Feb. 6 and when the board meets on Feb. 9 it would decide on how to proceed at that point. She said if one of the candidates in the election had applied, the board could then choose to hold off until the Feb. 23 meeting to fill the position, after the primary election. And if none of the candidates applied, they board was free to vote Feb. 9 on the replacement.
The board approved that plan.
Applications for the open School Board position can be obtained from the District Office, 2043 Division St., or online at www.easttroy.k12.wi.us and are due back by 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6.
