Too many candidates from Minonk for School Board

Of the eleven candidates vying for the four open positions, eight are from the Minonk area; one is from Toluca and two from Wenona. This scenario opens up the possibility that both Wenona candidates and the Toluca candidate will be elected while only one candidate from Minonk will be elected. The reason for this possibility is because the votes from Minonk will be split among too many candidates from Minonk. Also, of the three board members that are not up for re-election, only Joe Kirkpatrick is from Minonk. Board President Jeff Pickard is from Wenona and Melinda Tiraboschi is from Toluca.

Therefore, it is possible that only one candidate will be elected from Minonk. If so, the Fieldcrest School Board will consist of 2 members from Toluca, 3 from Wenona and 2 from Minonk. This means that while the Minonk area represents over 50% of the population of the school district, it will have only 25% representation on the school board.

This possibility can definitely cause further friction between the communities. Toluca and Wenona are battling to keep their middle schools from being combined into attendance centers while the Minonk members of the board are struggling to get attendance centers established. If Minonk loses more members on the board, the possibility of installing attendance centers becomes more remote.

So what can be done to avoid this impending train wreck for Minonk residents? The obvious answer is to reduce the number of candidates that are running from Minonk. However, according to Fieldcrest Superintendent Dr. Michael Stagliano, February 3rd was the deadline for candidates to withdraw their names from the ballot. Therefore, it seems that some sort of gentlemen's agreement will be needed among the eight Minonk candidates to decide who should stay in the race and who should drop out. Ideally, it would be best to have four candidates running from Minonk since there are four seats available on the board. Obviously, all four may not be elected, but their chances improve significantly if the Minonk votes are not split among four additional candidates.

I hesitate to state my choice for the four candidates who should run from Minonk. In fact, I do not even know some of the candidates. As a starting point I will offer this suggestion. I believe that the incumbent candidates Tom Barth and Tim McNamara should be in the running. What other criteria should be used? I discussed this with Superintendent Stagliano and we agreed that one good criterion is to determine which candidates attended the most school board meetings. We both agreed that Gary Wolf and Eric Schultz were the most frequent attendants to school board meetings.

I propose that the eight Minonk candidates get together and discuss this matter and see if some kind of consensus can be reached to determine four candidates from Minonk. Some may say that this is undemocratic. I say that it is politics as usual and goes on all the time in a democratic society. Democratic principles sometimes must be tempered with reality. In this case, the eight Minonk candidates must hang together to decide the final four candidates or else all Minonk residents may hang separately as a manner of speaking.