"Unofficial" Election Results

I called the County Clerk's Office and here are the "unofficial" results for the School Board Election:

Bill Denney    291
Robert Barrett  73

Mark Alvord     158
Asa Wimsatt      191

Corina Lisk       151
Lance Wright    241

2 mil levy:
For        230
Against 154

Even though about 14% of eligible voters actually voted, our percentage was higher than that of Alamogordo or Tularosa.

New School Board Members

Congratulations to the new School Board Members voted in on Tuesday. And kudos to all of those who braved the nasty weather to vote!
Doug Porch will return to the school board, along with new members Arlan Ponder and Gerold Green.
Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News.

Meet the School Board Candidates

You can listen to a podcast of Thursday night's "meet the candidates" forum at http://cmsbears.podbean.com or search for the podcast on ITunes.

Here is the article covering the meeting which ran in the Alamogordo Daily News.

School Board Elections

There are three school board seats open in the upcoming election:
1) the seat currently held by Doug Porch...Doug will be running again and is unopposed.
2)The seat currently held by Terry Butram...Terry has opted not to run again. There are three candidates running for this position: Dulaney Barrett, Gerald Green, and Denny Schilling
3)The seat currently held by Ed Woten...Ed will be running again. Arlan Ponder is also running for this position.

There are several opportunities for you to meet the candidates, ask them questions and become an educated voter:
January 11 at 7pm at the Mayhill Community Center
January 12 at 7pm at the Weed School Gym Kitchen
January 13 at 7pm at the Pinon Extension Building
January 18 at 7pm at the Timberon Community Center
January 20 at 6:30pm at the Cloudcroft High School Commons

I am truly impressed and appreciative that the candidates are making such a concerted effort to appear throughout the district. It's a lot of driving and and a lot of time, and shows a lot of commitment on their part. I might add that these dates were not set at the last school board meeting. In fact, it was one of the candidates, Dulaney Barrett, who set up all but the January 20th meeting and had the information published in the Mountain Monthly. There was some discussion about this at last night's meeting, (you can listen on the podcast, http://cmsbears.podbean.com, under the Superintendent's Report section). The school board, after this discussion, set up the meeting at the school on January 20th.

So, the candidates are out there. If you have an interest in Cloudcroft Schools, surely you can make the time to visit with all of them, ask them their position on key issues, and make an educated choice in the upcoming election.

Early voting has already started, or you can vote in person on February 1, 2011.

Regular School Board Meeting January 10, 2011

Here is the agenda for this meeting. Sorry this didn't get loaded last week, but life got in the way!
Please listen to the podcast of this meeting at http://cmsbears.podbean.com/
The Alamogordo Daily News article covering this meeting.

Alamogordo Daily News article covering School Board Meeting

Here is the article from the Alamogordo Daily News covering Monday's School Board Meeting.

School Board Meeting October 11, 2010

The podcast of this meeting is available at www.cmsbears.podbean.com. During the meeting, Superintendent Tommy Hancock gave a presentation he called "school finance 101" where he outlined how the state allocates money and some of the constraints that are placed on the school as to how they can spend the money. Part of this presentation included copies of the financial overhead presentation that he gave last month with the source of the funds noted.

Also discussed at the meeting was the upcoming school board election. There are three four-year terms up for grabs. Those positions are currently held by Doug Porch, Ed Woten and Terry Butram. Doug Porch mentioned that he would run again. I did not hear Ed Woten or Terry Butram declare their intentions.

If anyone is interested in running for the school board, they must declare their candidacy on December 21, 2010 between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the Otero County Clerk's Office. There is only one day to get on the ballot. If you miss this date, then you have until December 28, 2010 to be a write-in candidate. The election will be held on February 1, 2011.

Business Manager Sharlotte Lund mentioned that most of the 3.2% operational budget cut was being covered with Federal stimulus money from the Educational Job Fund. After those monies are applied to salaries, the school is left with a $17,000 budget cut.