School board hopefuls face off at local forum

WASILLA — Two points on which local school board candidates could agree at Thursday’s forum: the graduation rate needs to rise but taxes do not.

The forum, sponsored by the Greater Palmer and Greater Wasilla chambers of commerce, featured all five candidates seeking election to the board. Susan Pougher, running unopposed, was only present for opening and closing statements.

Incumbent and current board president Colleen Vague said she feels the district is heading in an exciting new direction and had rave reviews for the district’s new superintendent, Kenneth Burnley.

Her opponent for Seat F, Neal Lacy, didn’t say much about the superintendent’s performance or qualifications, but had a lot to say about his salary, pointing out he makes $40,000 more than his predecessor.

“There are people that are losing their jobs and we’re hiring this person for that amount of money?” he asked. Later he described Burnley’s $184,000 salary as a violation of the public’s trust.

Vague, for her part, said Burnley has done great things so far and she expects that will continue.

“I don’t think it’s wasted money,” Vague said, pointing out that with superintendents, as in life, you have to pay more for higher quality.

Over on the other side of the table, probably the biggest difference between incumbent Myrl Thompson and opponent Lynn Gattis was their respective life experiences. Thompson is a baseball coach and former journalist. Gattis is a pilot who runs Point MacKenzie hay farms as well as an aviation business and a string of rental properties.

On the issues, they seemed to mainly agree. Asked about the budget, Gattis said she hasn’t looked over it like she would if she were going over her the budget for her company, but if cuts had to be made her hope would be administrators could tighten their belts and cuts wouldn’t have to affect teachers and students.

Asked the same question, Thompson said making any cuts is extremely hard in a budget that is almost entirely eaten up with payroll.

“Our classrooms are already crowded,” he said. “We’re actually doing more with less every year.”

On the question of raising taxes to generate more school funding, Gattis, Lacy and Vague all gave very short answers. Lacy summed them up with his one-word response — “No.” Thompson also said, “no,” but added there are better ways to fix budget problems.

As for graduation rates, all four candidates cited those statistics as the most pressing issue facing the district and said schools need to do a better job of meeting kids’ needs to keep them in school.

Asked about maintenance bonds, the incumbents seemed to be in agreement that it’s hard for the district to get state money when it takes good care of its schools. State grants, Vague and Thompson said, tend to go to schools that are about to fall over. So, they said, bonds are just about the only way to go.

“We also need to go to the voters and try to get them to understand the need, that this isn’t frivolous,” Vague said.

For his part, Lacy said he doesn’t think schools were built right in the first place, saying flat roofs don’t make sense in Alaska and neither does carpet when tile is more durable. He called carpet replacement projects “frivolous wastes of our taxpayer dollars.”

Gattis said bonds need to be for important things.

“We as a school board need to show all our taxpayers that we’re really spending our school dollars wisely,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.