Mayer, Martin on Chimacum Schools November ballot

CHIMACUM — The names of Chimacum School Board candidates Kristina Mayer and Steve Martin will be on the Nov. 5 general election ballot following a recount for the District 3 seat.

Martin edged candidate Gary Frogner by two votes to reach the general election.

The unofficial recount results are scheduled to be certified at 12:30 p.m. today in the Jefferson County Auditor’s Office.

Mayer and Martin will compete for the position currently held by Board Chair Mike Gould, who is not seeking re-election.

Mayer, 66, the owner of KLMayer Consulting Group LLC in Chimacum, amassed the most votes in the primary, receiving 1,361 votes, or 53.14 percent, of the overall 2,561 votes cast for the four candidates.

Martin, 47, the owner of NW Landworks Inc. of Chimacum, amassed 504 votes, or 19.68 percent.

“I’m excited about the outcome, and I’m looking forward to talking with the public about good things that are happening in the Chimacum School District and some of my ideas for improving them,” he said.

Frogner said he’s invested in quality education and focused on the best interests of the students in the school district.

“I’m confident that Steve will do a great job,” he said.

“The direction the school has been in for the last number of years, I’m confident Steve will turn that around.”

Martin followed close behind Frogner for most of the ballot counts in the all-mail primary election, with a seven-vote difference between the two after the initial count Aug. 6.

That became a one-vote margin after a subsequent count, but then Aug. 20, after many challenged ballots were cleared for counting, Martin overtook Frogner by two votes.

The close difference required a recount as mandated by the state, which requires ballots to be counted by hand if the margin between two candidates is less than 150 votes and less than one quarter of 1 percent of the total votes cast.

The state requires a machine ballot recount in the event of a race having a difference of votes less than 2,000 and which is less than 0.5 percent of the overall votes cast for both candidates.

However, both Martin and Frogner consented to a machine recount, which allowed the election coordinators Betty Johnson and Quinn Grewell to do so, instead of by hand.

Grewell said Thursday there will not be another recount.

Frogner, a retired senior director of West Coast operations for Concurrent Technologies Corp., in Pennsylvania, received 502 votes, or 19.6 percent.

“The real story is we’ve got a school that has declining enrollment, cultural issues, unhappiness within the workforce about the leadership, and a disengagement between the school and the community,” Frogner said.

Martin said Frogner called him Wednesday night to congratulate him and offer support for the future.

“I told him one of the highlights of running for School Board was getting to know him,” Martin said. “Win or lose, I’m going to stay involved with the youth in our community. I’m already involved with coaching and volunteering with the schools as it is.”

The top-two primary culls candidates to the top two voter-getters for the general election.

The fourth candidate, student Jeremy Perrott, 21, received 194 votes, or 7.58 percent.

Three of the five Chimacum School Board positions will be on the Nov. 5 ballot. The District 3 position was the only race on the primary ballot because it had more than two candidates.

Ballots for the Nov. 5 election will be mailed to registered voters Oct. 16. Ballots will be mailed to registered voters oversees or in the military Sept. 20, the day before the state deadline of Sept. 21, Grewell said.

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Jefferson County reporter Zach Jablonski can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 5, or at zjablonski@peninsuladailynews.com.

Jefferson County Managing Editor Brian McLean contributed to this story.

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