The School Board Race: Three Seats, Seven Candidates, and Your Property Taxes

Let’s start with what will probably affect your daily life most directly. Three school board seats are up for grabs, and the seven candidates have genuinely different visions for how our district should handle the $45 million budget shortfall that’s been looming since the state changed its funding formula last year.

Current board member Sarah Chen is running for re-election on a platform of targeted budget cuts that would eliminate the district’s arts coordinator position but preserve all classroom teaching jobs. Her opponent, former teacher Marcus Williams, wants to float a bond measure next spring to fund building improvements while advocating for a temporary increase in class sizes. Newcomer Rebecca Torres, who has three kids in district schools, is pushing for what she calls “radical transparency” in budget meetings and wants to renegotiate the superintendent’s contract.

The other four candidates include retired principal Janet Morrison, parent organizer David Kim, local business owner Lisa Fernandez, and community volunteer Tom Rodriguez. Morrison and Kim both support exploring a parcel tax to fund teacher salaries, while Fernandez and Rodriguez favor looking at shared services with neighboring districts to cut administrative costs.

Here’s what I haven’t been able to pin down yet: specific numbers on how much any of these proposals would actually save or cost. I’ve asked all seven campaigns for detailed budget projections, and so far only Chen and Williams have provided concrete figures. The candidate forum is Thursday at 7 PM at the library, and I’ll be there with a calculator and some pointed questions about the math.

City Council: Two Open Seats and the Housing Question

Council members Jake Peterson and Maria Gonzalez are both stepping down after eight years of service, leaving two open seats that will help determine whether our city moves forward with the controversial Maple Street affordable housing development. The project would add 120 units of workforce housing on the current site of the old Safeway, but it needs council approval for the zoning change.

The six candidates split almost evenly on this issue. Pro-development candidates include current planning commissioner Amy Liu, small business owner Carlos Mendez, and nonprofit director Jennifer Walsh. They argue that the project would help address our 2.1 percent rental vacancy rate and provide housing for teachers, firefighters, and other essential workers who currently commute from neighboring towns.

The more cautious candidates are neighborhood association president Robert Chang, retired city employee Susan Davis, and local attorney Michael Thompson. They’re not necessarily anti-housing, but they want to see traffic studies completed first and worry about the impact on the elementary school that’s already at capacity.

What’s missing from this debate so far is any serious discussion of where else affordable housing could go if the Maple Street project fails. I’ve looked at every available parcel in the city, and there aren’t many viable alternatives. The candidates need to be pressed on this point because opposing this project without offering realistic alternatives is just kicking the can down the road.

The Ballot Measures: Public Safety, Parks, and a Question About Parking Meters

Measure A asks voters to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase to fund additional police officers and firefighters. The measure would raise approximately $1.2 million annually and specifically fund two new police positions and one additional firefighter-paramedic. Response times for emergency calls have increased 23 percent over the past three years, and the fire chief has been pretty blunt about staffing challenges during our recent heat waves.

The opposition argues that the city should reallocate existing funds rather than raising taxes, and they have a point about the general fund surplus that’s been sitting in reserves. However, that surplus is earmarked for infrastructure projects, and using it for ongoing personnel costs would create a budget cliff in future years.

Measure B is more straightforward: a $3.8 million bond to renovate the community center and upgrade playground equipment at Miller Park. The monthly cost for the median homeowner would be about $14, and the bond would be paid off over 15 years. The community center hasn’t had major updates since 1987, and anyone who’s tried to use the gym lately knows the floor is becoming a safety hazard.

Measure C is the odd one out: it would authorize the city to install parking meters in the downtown core. This one came about because of complaints from business owners about employees taking all the street parking, leaving customers circling the block. The meters would cost 50 cents per hour with a two-hour limit, and all revenue would go toward downtown improvements. It’s the kind of thing that sounds annoying until you realize you currently spend fifteen minutes looking for parking every time you want to grab lunch downtown.

What the Endorsements Tell Us (And What They Don’t)

The local Democratic Party endorsed Chen, Williams, and Torres for school board, along with Liu, Mendez, and Walsh for city council. The Republican Party didn’t issue school board endorsements but backed Chang, Davis, and Thompson for council. Both parties support Measures A and B, while Democrats favor Measure C and Republicans oppose it.

The teachers’ union endorsed the three pro-funding candidates for school board, which isn’t surprising, but their silence on the sales tax measure is notable. The firefighters’ union predictably supports Measure A, while the chamber of commerce has endorsed the parking meter measure after years of member complaints about downtown access.

More interesting are the endorsements from neighborhood groups and environmental organizations. The East Side Neighborhood Association broke with their usual patterns to support affordable housing, while the Environmental Action Group is split on whether downtown parking meters will reduce car trips or just frustrate people into driving to the mall instead.

What’s been refreshing this cycle is how many candidates have attended community forums and actually answered specific questions about their positions. There’s been less of the usual political theater and more substantive discussion of trade-offs and implementation details.

Your Voting Game Plan

Polling locations remain the same as previous elections, open from 7 AM to 8 PM on Tuesday, November 7th. If you requested a mail-in ballot, remember it needs to be postmarked by election day or dropped off at city hall by 8 PM. The county has added a ballot drop box in the parking lot behind the library for added convenience.

Sample ballots are available on the city website, and I’ve found it helpful to mark my choices ahead of time rather than trying to remember everything in the voting booth. The school board race in particular has a lot of candidates, and the ballot order isn’t alphabetical this year.

I’ll be tracking results on election night and will have analysis posted by Wednesday morning on what these outcomes mean for the next four years of local governance. If you want to dig deeper into any of these races or have questions about candidate positions, I’m always available for coffee and civic conversation at the usual spots downtown.