SEQUIM — Incumbent Virginia O’Neil was re-elected to Sequim School Board in Tuesday’s general election.
O’Neil had 4,112 votes, or 68.8 percent, to challenger Jon Kirshbaum’s 1,859 votes, or 31.1 percent in a combined total of both Clallam and Jefferson counties for the District 2 seat.
O’Neil, the 48-year-old mother of three daughters who have gone through the Sequim school system, has served on the school board since 2007.
“It feels really good to do work that’s going to make life better for children,” she said.
Adding that her fellow directors work well together, O’Neil said she “feel[s] really at home being on the school board,” after 14 years of living in Sequim.
Kirshbaum, 66, is a retired information technology manager and financial systems analyst with 23 years of experience working with administrators and board members in Chicago’s schools.
“I’m one of these people that perseveres,” he said. “I’ll probably be back in two years to run again.”
He added that he’s willing to volunteer for the Sequim school district in the meantime.
The Sequim school board sets policies for the district’s 2,890 students and five campuses and sets salaries for 199 teachers and 135 classfied staff.
Among the coming challenges for the board are renewal of a maintenance and operations levy in 2010 — at a tax rate that, O’Neil has said, that must rise if the district is to cope with deep cuts in state funding.
In Clallam County, 16,610 ballots, or about 36 percent of all the 45,739 ballots mailed for the general election, were counted Tuesday.
The Clallam County Auditor’s Office expected to count the votes of at least an additional 4,500 ballots on Friday.
In Jefferson County, 11,985 ballots have been counted out of 21,983 ballots mailed to registered voters.
About 600 ballots are left to count. The next count will be at noon Thursday.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.