School Board, District 5
Election Results
| Candidate | Votes | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Mitch Swenson | 1,893 | 56.02% |
| James Whiteley | 1,486 | 43.98% |
* Race percentages are calculated with data from the Secretary of State's Office, which omits write-in votes from its calculations when there are too few to affect the outcome. The Spokane County Auditor's Office may have slightly different percentages than are reflected here because its figures include any write-in votes.
The Candidates
Mitch Swenson
- Age:
- 64
Education: Graduated from Cheney High School in 1978. Graduated from Eastern Washington University in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in finance.
Work experience: Commercial real estate broker with NAI Black for over 40 years.
Political experience: Elected Cheney Public Schools board member in 2015 and re-elected in 2019.
Family: Married to Kris Swenson. Has eight children. Five of his kids graduated from schools in the district.
James Whiteley
- Age:
- 57
- Occupation:
- Incumbent school board member
His words: “I do think overall we do a very good job. It’s not like there is something that is missing.”
His pitch: Whiteley said he doesn’t think the district has many issues. However, he would like to improve is the board’s responsiveness to voters. He specifically references two failed bonds the district tried to pass in the last year.
“If the people of this community didn’t want the original bond, we should have reassessed and found out what they wanted,” Whiteley said.
Notable experience: Whiteley has served on the board for one term. He’s lived in the Cheney district since 1999 and his four children went through the Cheney school system. He’s a volunteer Chaplin for the Police Department and a Chaplin at Fairchild Air Force Base.
Education: Graduated from Medical Lake High School in 1984. Earned an MBA from Gonzaga and a master of divinity from the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.