District 81 Race Remains Undecided Absentee Ballots To Determine An Opponent For Front-Runner

Rocco Treppiedi and Steven Neumiller will have to wait a week to see who will take on the uphill battle against Christie Querna for a Spokane School District 81 board seat.

School volunteer Querna, by far the front-runner with more than half the votes cast in Tuesday’s primary, won in all but five precincts.

Assistant city attorney Treppiedi is in second place, but by only 62 votes. He won in only five of 69 precincts, including those surrounding his home in northwest Spokane.

Neumiller did not win any precincts. In his own precinct, he won only 5 percent of the vote.

Election officials plan to count remaining absentee ballots one week from Friday. About 4,000 absentees were counted Tuesday and were included in unofficial results on election night. Election officials said they don’t know how many absentees remain uncounted.

If the current margin between Treppiedi and Neumiller stands, there would be no mandatory recount. Neumiller said it’s unlikely he would request one.

Meanwhile, Treppiedi plans to continue campaigning.

“We’re not going to wait until the final result,” he said.

In a field of six candidates, Querna and Treppiedi were the only ones who had raised significant contributions and posted campaign signs.

Treppiedi made an issue of the fact there is only one current board member who lives north of the Spokane River. Treppiedi’s newspaper ad said, “It’s time to balance the school board.”

Querna, 50, said she is disappointed Treppiedi “was playing that card.”

“I don’t think it’s positive. It’s divisive,” she said. “I don’t think kids and parents are any different on the North Side and the South Side.”

But Treppiedi said geographic diversity would help the board’s credibility.

He said that when he tells voters there is only one North Sider on the board, “people step back. Their eyes open wide. People get upset by it.”

In general, Treppiedi did better on the North Side than on the South Hill. Throughout District 81, he took about 16 percent of the vote, but in 10 precincts in northwest Spokane, he won 30 percent of the vote to Querna’s 43 percent.

On the other hand, Querna enjoyed massive support on her home turf. In 10 precincts on the South Hill, she received 69 percent of the vote compared with Treppiedi’s 14 percent.

Jimmie Marks, the Gypsy leader who is suing the city for $40 million, received 5 percent of the vote.

Marks admitted for the first time Wednesday that he ran to draw attention to Treppiedi’s involvement in defending the city in the 6-year-old lawsuit.

Running, Marks said, accomplished “what I wanted it to do.”

, DataTimes