Last week, in a story about the Tea Party of Spokane’s downtown rally, I noted that some activists came to the event to gather signatures on causes that might seem contradictory to the conservative and anti-tax themes of the event.

One was Austin DePaolo, who collected signatures in support of the Children’s Investment Fund, a proposal that would increase taxes for programs aimed at lowering the dropout rate. I reported that he was unsuccessful at persuading Laura Carder to sign.

In a brief interview on Sunday while he was collecting signatures at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, DePaolo said that soon after I saw Carder decline to sign his petition, she agreed to do.

DePaolo and Carder ran for a seat last year on the Spokane School Board. Carder defeated DePaolo in the primary and went on to lose the incumbent in November.

Rocky Treppiedi kept his District 81 School Board seat on the strength of his vote margins in the south and northwest parts of the district, which extends outside the city limits. Laura Carder did well in northeast Spokane, where she’s run previously as a legislative candidate, but those precincts traditionally have fewer voters and smaller turnout than the ones Treppiedi won.

Incumbent Rocky Treppeidi inched a bit farther ahead of challenger Laura Carder in Thursday’s vote count. But there’s still a dramatic north-south split in the votes as shown in the map here.

The Spokane School Board races are too tight to call with any certainty. But a look at the vote patterns shows a definite north-south split in both races.

It’s probably most pronounced in the Position 4 race, where incumbent Rocky Treppiedi has a narrow lead over challenger Laura Carder. Current tally is:

Treppiedi 17,893 (51.64%)
Carder     16,758 (48.36%)