Monday, April 02, 2007

Kansas: Vote tomorrow in city & school board elections

By Diane Silver

Don't forget to go out and vote tomorrow. Although local elections might seem unimportant, they can have a major impact on your life. Because turnout is notoriously low, your vote can also have a major impact on the outcome of each race.

In Lawrence, the fate of the domestic partner registry may be determined by the City Commission election. Issues of quality of life, preservation, the power of real estate developers will also decide the race for three open seats. The Lawrence School Board is also up for a vote. School board candidates recently discussed their positions on the issue of domestic partner benefits.

Elsewhere, there have been signs that the religious right is once again making a run to take over local school boards.

Polls are open 7 am to 7 pm.

Kansas Equality PAC has endorsed the following candidates, who are "committed to supporting the issues of the LGBT community."

The endorsed candidates are:
Clearwater City Council
Judy Armstrong

Goddard Mayor
Marcey Gregory

Lawrence City Commission
Carey Maynard-Moody http://www.voteforcarey.com/

David Schauner http://voteschauner.org/index.cfm

Dennis "Boog" Highberger
http://www.voteboog.com/index.php
Park City City Council - District 4
Keith Thomas

Wichita City Council - District 2
Elizabeth Bishop
USD 259 (Wichita School Board) - District 3
Barb Fuller
MAINPAC, the political action committee started by the MAINstream Coalition, has endorsed candidates for school board and Johnson County Community College Trustees. Kansas Families United for Public Education have endorsed these candidates.

2 comments:

Mike said...

For Lawrence school board, it looks like the candidates to support are (based on the NEA questionairre):

Marlene Merrill
Rich Minder
Micael Pomes

Each of those three gave an unqualified "yes" to the question of whether they would support DP benefits for Lawrence school employees.

The next two said they would support DP benefits, but qualified their answers slightly, still good candidates.

Mary Loveland
Michael Machell

This person said they didn't know:

Victor Sisk

Diane Silver said...

Thanks, Mike, for reminding us of this. I did put a link to the candidate's answers in my post. You can see their answers in detail there.

Personally, I'm voting for Merrill, Minder and Pomes. I had always voted for Loveland in the past, but she did so much dancing around on this issue that I just don't trust where she would go on this.