Dayton School Board race to look like Republican Presidential Primary

Just pulling petitions doesn’t mean you’ll get on the ballot- unless you are a party-endorsed candidate in Montgomery County (they get their petitions checked for free by BOE employees on their “lunch break”).

According to the BOE site- here is who has pulled petitions, that are due on Wed. Aug 5th. You’d need 300 good signatures of registered Dayton voters to get on the ballot.

Incumbents in bold.

  • Jerome (Jerry) Brunswick, 426 E. Sixth St., Dayton 45402
  • Louis D. Butler, 2374 Rustic Rd., Dayton 45406
  • Ann Marie Gallin (Mario), 40 Gebhart St., Dayton 45410 Petition Fail 12 Aug 2015
  • Hashim Ali Jabar, 40 S. Decker Ave., Apt. 7, Dayton 45417
  • John A. Lumpkin, Jr., 1258 Hook Estate Dr., Dayton
  • John S. McManus, 35 S. St. Clair St., Apt 502, Dayton
  • Nancy A. Nerny, 482 Shiloh Dr., Dayton 45415
  • Anthony Dion Roebuck, 1406 Steiner Ave., Dayton
  • Sheila Taylor, 2818 Kenview Ave., Dayton
  • Robert Charles Walker, 4516 College View Dr., Dayton 45417

UPDATE

5 Aug 2015 Butler, Jabar, Roebuck didn’t file, now we wait to find out who had enough valid signatures

Unlike the Dayton City Commission, there is no primary to thin the herd. One ballot, pick three, and the top three win. Obviously, with more candidates, the incumbents, get a better shot at being known quantities and have a better shot.

Only one person has turned in petitions so far- John McManus. (full disclosure- my firm printed his signs and stickers) and he has been out walking longer than anyone else.

Thursday night I was presented with a dual candidate petition- for Jerry Brunswick and John Lumpkin. I’m not sure how these work- since you are allowed to sign up to 3 petitions, and I’d signed 2. Guess it’s first in and first name on the petition that gets the credit in these cases. The circulator told me the petition format of more than one candidate was OK on Russ Joseph’s advice- which means these are the chosen party candidates. Word on the street was that Mayor Nan was trying to round up candidates for School Board because she wasn’t happy with the board as it sits- for once, we agree. Brunswick served on her “City of Learners committee” which issued yet another report with all the obvious issues stated and no real revelations.

Mario Gallin is a wild card, she’s been on the board before and is well liked. Brunswick is a former bank president who is also the part-time head of the milked-out port authority. Lumpkin is a Joey Williams contemporary who played football at Ohio State, worked as a bank branch manager at Chase for a long time before becoming a stockbroker/private wealth manager with Morgan Stanley. Both are good guys and very civic minded.

Last time Nearny was on the ballot, it was only because the BOE was nice enough to reverse itself on the 3 or 4 signatures she was short. That doesn’t happen very often, if at all.

I don’t know Butler or Roebuck off the top of my head. Of the other newcomers, there is only one that I’m not a fan of- and that’s Ali Jabar who likes to scream at people and try to incite racial issues as the cause of all ills. He’s married to the woman formerly known as Maria Holt now Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, and is tied in with Vernalia Randall, a former UD Law Professor , with “Racial Justice Now,” who rightly campaigns against the “school-to-prison pipeline” but does so in a manner I find insulting most of the time.

Of the existing school board members, all are caring and good people, who’ve been totally ineffective and visionless for the district. Not an original idea for transformation from any of them, and never a serious questioning of the Teflon-coated superintendent, Lori Ward.

While being the highest paid elected official in the county, Ward has muddled through one crisis after another, without making any real progress for years. Talented teachers, principals and administrators have jumped ship, tired of waiting for her to plug the many holes on the sinking ship. Some of her hires have been incredibly questionable, including former “Chief Operating Officer” James Harris who barely unpacked by DPS standards before they parted ways.

With the state just itching to throw the district under the bus, and a state “takeover” on the near horizon, anyone wanting to run for this board should get bonus points. This upcoming term, plus having to work with Hazel Rountree (she’s proof that degrees and positions don’t prove that you have any idea of what you are doing) should be enough to scare anyone off. The last election we only had four candidates on the ballot for four seats if that’s any kind of indication.

Looking online for candidates’ websites (so you can actually learn something about them and their positions) is like finding needles in a haystack. Of course it doesn’t matter, because the voters who are going to pick them are notoriously underinformed and make lousy choices (the current Dayton City Commission is a prime example).

A quick search-

If any of the candidates (and I know most of you will find out about this post) have a site they want to direct voters to, let me know via comments below.

Frankly, other than McManus, y’all look mighty unprepared (the drawl is because if you’ve met McManus, you know he sounds straight out of Tennessee, probably because that’s where he’s from). One pro, a bunch of amateurs- sounds just like the Republican Presidential Primary field, and I’ll leave it to you to guess who I think the pro is.

It will be a week from Tuesday to see how the BOE thins the herd.

If you enjoyed reading true breaking news, instead of broken news from the major media in Dayton, make sure you subscribe to this site for an email every time I post. If you wish to support this blog and independent journalism in Dayton, consider donating. All of the effort that goes into writing posts and creating videos comes directly out of my pocket, so any amount helps! Please also subscribe to the Youtube channel for notifications of every video we launch – including the livestreams.