Iowa City's lefties were perplexed by a school election in which they had no horse running. But in the end incumbent Gayle Klouda and newcomer Mike Cooper landed just 11 votes apart for the two seats, nearly tripling the total for Republican activist Deb Thornton.
Was this a case of vote for two to vote against the one? One group or another was upset with every candidate. Teachers were grumbling about Klouda's votes to give Superintendent Plugge another big raise and against funding additional buses in Coralville. Cooper stumbled on an answer on intelligent design in a candidate forum, and had to backpedal. And folks remembered Thornton's presence in the GOP's 2004 ballot challenge effort in Johnson County. So any way you sliced it, there was something to not like.
There was open yearning for another candidate, email discussions of who to write in, with former (1999-02) board member Dale Shultz a frequent mention. But in the end only a few dozen ballots from 2600+ voters had write ins.
Support for Klouda and Cooper paralleled closely, with Cooper seeing a little higher percentage in Coralville and North Liberty. That's where he's from and they've been unrepresented on the board in recent years (Dave Franker served part of his one term as a North Liberty resident, but he lived on Iowa City's west side when elected in 2001).
Thornton, on the other hand, had hot spots: the southeast side and Hills, both of which are traditionally weak areas for support of things like school funding measures. She also ran a little better on the east side than in the rest of the district, and especially weak in Manville Heights.
And Solon elected Dean Martin. Sammy and Frank look like they want to run next year.
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