By Jennifer Moody
Albany Democrat-Herald | Posted: Tuesday, October 7, 2008 12:00 am
LEBANON - By a nearly two to one ratio, voters in the Lebanon Community School District have said they want to keep two members of the Lebanon School Board.
According to unofficial totals in Tuesday's special election, Board Chairman Josh Wineteer received 3,909 votes answering "no" to the question of whether he should be recalled to 1,995 votes saying "yes."
Vice Chairman Rick Alexander received 3,920 "no" votes on the recall question and 1,992 saying "yes."
The totals do not include ballots from Lebanon-area drop sites, but Linn County Clerk Steve Druckenmiller said those will be insufficient to change the results.
"It just means we're on the right path, and I think a two-to-one vote by the people of Lebanon reaffirms that," Wineteer said in a telephone interview late Tuesday.
Alexander promised to continue serving the public "as best I can."
"I hope that the factions that are in the community can come together and provide better education and a more harmonious district than before," he said. "I'm willing to work with my adversaries, or the ones who thought I was their adversary. I hope they put as much effort into education as they did in trying to recall me. I would welcome their help."
A group called Lebanon CARES initiated the recall, accusing Wineteer and Alexander of acting improperly as board members.
Wineteer said he believes the recall was not about his or Alexander's actions, but about support for Superintendent Jim Robinson. Robinson accepted a settlement agreement from the board and resigned on Monday.
"More than anything, it was about the superintendent," Wineteer said. "If CARES had honest issues with Rick and I, I wouldn't have taken near the exception to the recall effort as I did."
In particular, Wineteer objected to the CARES charge that he and Alexander had colluded on district issues outside of public sessions.
Talking to one another, one at a time, "is the right of all board members," Wineteer said, adding it's something all members of the Lebanon board have done. He challenged CARES to point to policies or contract language prohibiting such discussions.
Wineteer said recall petitioners also accused the board members of favoring Sand Ridge Charter School with extra state money, but never pointed out that the proposed contract - now being renegotiated - actually cut the charter school's budget by limiting its population. "That's very disingenuous," he said.
Wineteer called upon CARES to disband now that the recall is over. CARES President Tre Kennedy said the group has no such plans, and that members stand ready to work with all five board members.
"CARES wasn't created to run a recall, and CARES is not going away because the recall wasn't successful," he said.
The group's mission is "to facilitate positive changes in education. We believed that was going to happen with board turnover. We're going to have the same board, so we'll try something else."
The recall was meant to be about specific actions taken by two people, Kennedy said. "In my mind, it was never about Jim Robinson, but they were successful in convincing the community that it was."
He said he's sorry some people took the recall effort as an attack on the charter school. "That was never, ever my intent," he said.