Incumbents Lock Up School Votes Former Cda Chairman Tim Olson Is Only Challenger To Win Election
School trustee elections in North Idaho went to the incumbents Tuesday night, except in one Coeur d’Alene race.
School boards will remain unchanged in the Post Falls, Plummer/Worley, St. Maries and Kellogg districts.
In Coeur d’Alene, former school board chairman Tim Olson unseated incumbent Eli Ross with 207 votes to Ross’s 124.
Incumbent Vern Newby kept his seat, also with 207 votes, fending off challenges by Pamela Fink and Larry Rook. Fink drew 71 votes and Rook won 27.
In Post Falls, a relieved board chairman Kevin Schneidmiller said he worried before the election that he would lose his seat to Don Morgan, a frequent critic of Post Falls schools.
Schneidmiller beat Morgan, 98 to 60.
“Don (Morgan) ran a good campaign … an aggressive campaign,” Schneidmiller said. “I figured it would be close.”
Ed Adamchak, who was appointed to the Post Falls School Board last year, kept his seat with 250 votes to challenger Robert Hunt’s 150 votes.
In other Panhandle school elections:
The St. Maries School District’s $335,000 supplemental levy passed with 378 votes to 142.
In the district’s one contested trustee race, incumbent Michael Stone beat Tami Holdahl with 107 votes to 75.
Lakeland School District’s $18,000 supplemental levy for activity buses passed, 311 to 75.
Kootenai Joint School District’s $50,000 school plant facilities levy and a $175,000 supplemental levy passed with 78 percent of the vote.
Plummer/Worley School District incumbents Al Walters and Walter Floch won, beating challengers Linda Chilson and Rick Foster in an election that drew less than 75 voters.
Zone 1 in that district remains unrepresented. No one ran for the seat, and there were no write-in candidates.
Incumbents also prevailed in the Kellogg School District.
Susan Costa won with 81 votes to challenger Ray Faraca’s 50 votes in Zone 2, the city of Kellogg. In the Pinehurst area, Zone 4, write-in candidate Linda Piekarski received just 18 votes, far short of unseating Mark Cowles, who received 69 votes.