Janet Hansen Looks Ahead

From the North Side Voice, November 20, 1997, page N3: CORRECTION The Deer Park and Riverside School Districts do not have combined busing. A story in last week’s edition was incorrect.

Janet Hansen knew something wasn’t right. The chair of the Riverside School Board refused to believe she had lost last week’s election even though the numbers looked bad.

The final results showed challenger Patricia Blair beating Hansen for her school district seat. But, as it turned out, county election officials goofed when they flipped-flopped the candidates’ names on the election result sheets.

“I watched the election returns on-line all night,” Hansen said. “The results didn’t feel right. That wasn’t the flavor of the response that I had gotten throughout the campaign.”

The next day, Hansen was officially declared the winner with 1,291 votes to 911 for Blair.

“I feel so bad for the mix-up,” Hansen said. “Both of us ran a good race. It’s too bad, but that’s life. Mistakes are made.”

This school board race turned into its own little soap opera. After Hansen and Blair deadlocked for first place in the September primary, county elections officials had to toss a coin to determine which of the two would appear first on the election ballot. Hansen won the coin flip.

And now she’s won the election.

Now she can redirect her efforts to improving the roughly 2,200-student school district.

Hansen said district officials are considering asking voters to approve a bond measure in February.

She said the financial details have yet to be worked out, but the majority of any money raised would go to remodeling Riverside Middle School.

“We had a high voter turnout in our district,” Hansen said. “We (the board) need to keep going out and communicating with our patrons. We need to keep those numbers up and people interested.”

Hansen said the district’s bond and levy committee has been meeting twice a month for most of the year to prioritize the district’s needs.

She also said she and the board will continue to examine ways to improve busing for students in the district.

The Deer Park and Riverside school districts merged their busing service into one this school year to save money. The move still isn’t popular with many parents.

“We had to make some tough decisions last year, but they were made with the kids and taxpayers in mind,” Hansen said. “But it’s still a genuine concern we’ll continue to look into.

, DataTimes