A candidate forum held on Wednesday at Kansas City Kansas Community College will be shown on cable TV next week. It also will be on the college’s YouTube channel beginning March 25. (Staff photo)
A candidate forum on Wednesday, March 18, at Kansas City Kansas Community College will be shown on the college’s cable television station next week.
The general election will be Tuesday, April 7.
Candidates in contested races for the Unified Government Commission, the Board of Public Utilities, the Kansas City, Kan., School Board and the Kansas City Kansas Community College Board of Trustees were invited to the candidate forum.
The cable television schedule for the forum:
• Wednesday, March 25, from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
• Thursday, March 26, from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
• Sunday, March 29, from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• Monday, April 6, from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
The college’s cable channel is 17 on Time Warner Cable and 146 on Google TV.
The forum will also be available on the college’s YouTube page on March 25. Go to the KCKCC web page, www.kckcc.edu, and click on the YouTube icon on the bottom right portion of the page to be directed to the YouTube page.
Sponsors of the candidate forum included Business West, Kansas City Kansas Community College, Downtown Shareholders, Historic Northeast Midtown Association, and Armourdale Renewal Association.
At a candidate forum Wednesday evening, candidates for the KCK school board spoke. From left, Maria Ysaac, Rep. Val Winn, incumbent Brenda Jones, moderator Murrel Bland, incumbent Gloria Willis, Irene Caudillo and Janey Humphries. To the right are Linda Pendleton, who asked questions, and incumbent George Breidenthal. (Staff photo) by Mary Rupert
There was no disagreement Wednesday evening among the seven Kansas City, Kan., school board candidates on the school block grant bill passed within this past week by the Kansas Legislature. The candidates roundly criticized it.
The block grant is designed to give school districts the same amount of money as they receive now for the next two years. The bill passed the House and Senate and went to the governor for a signature.
The seven KCK school board candidates made their remarks at an election forum at Kansas City Kansas Community College, sponsored by Business West, Downtown Shareholders, Historic Northeast Midtown Association, Armourdale Renewal Association, and the community college. About 100 persons attended. Asking questions of the school board candidates was Linda Pendleton, former KCK school board member who is the Armourdale Renewal Association executive director.
“The problem is, the Kansas City, Kan., district is a growing district,” said George Breidenthal, a school board incumbent. The board members fear that if their district adds students, which requires more teachers and other funding, it will not receive enough money for the additional students.
Some expect the new block grant funding bill to be challenged in court if it becomes law. On Tuesday, March 17, the Kansas attorney general filed an appeal to the a judicial panel’s finding that school funding in Kansas is inadequate in the Gannon case.
Breidenthal said the last he heard, the KCK district could lose up to $9 million under the new legislation. Right now the board is trying to figure out the school district’s budget, and has no idea of what to expect. The KCK district may get the same amount of funding that it received in 2003, he said. It was like trying to live on the same amount of funds that you had in 2003, he added.
Janey Humphries, a candidate for the school board, said the district is now expected to do more with less. Block grants will hurt the district because it is a growing district, she said. The district receives more funding for low-income, non-English speaking students, but that may change under the new legislation. There are about 9,000 non-English speaking students in the district, who are expected to perform well on tests in only one year, she added.
“What you’re seeing at the Capitol is definitely an attack on public education,” said Irene Caudillo, a school board candidate. The block grant was not good for the district, and legislators are trying to balance the budget on the backs of the children, she said.
“What we need to do is to make sure we continue to advocate,” she said. “We need to make sure that this does not happen.”
Gloria Willis, a member of the school board for 20 years, said the block grant reminds her of being put in a box. The box closes the district in, she said.
“I’m an advocate of public education,” she said. “We need to do things that will benefit the children in Kansas City, Kan.”
Brenda Jones, incumbent board member, pointed out that costs have gone up over the years as enrollment increases. The consumer price index was up 22.9 percent, enrollment increased 11.4 percent, the at-risk count is 23.2 percent and the bilingual number is 62.7 percent, she said.
“Our at-risk kids will be at risk even more,” Jones said. “They will be forgotten.”
Rep. Val Winn, D-34th Dist., a KCKCC professor who is running for the school board and plans to also serve at the same time in the Legislature, said the amount of funding to KCK will be reduced in the block grant. The funding amount on paper looks like more money, but it includes pension funding, not money that can be used in the classroom, she said.
“The block grant was a coup,” she said, and it will last as long as those who passed it are in power. There is still a last bastion of protecting the constitutionality of adequacy of funding, she added.
The Wyandotte County legislators who are Democrats voted against the block grant bill.
Maria Cecilia Ysaac, also a candidate for the school board, said, “It is sad and it makes my stomach turn that the legislators that said they were going to protect our education and that wanted the best for Kansas are doing this to our students, the most vulnerable, the ones that can’t defend ourselves. We are here to defend them. This school board, I believe, has an obligation to fight back any way it can, by encouraging our children to be civically active, to speak out, to march, to make phone calls, and to demand that their representatives represent their interests.
“Shame on them, but shame on us if we don’t do something about this and vote these people out,” Ysaac said.
Janet Waugh, State Board of Education member, 1st District, who attended the meeting, said afterward that she had “tweeted” this message right after the vote: “Today I say shame on you to the House members who voted yes” on the block grant bill.
Waugh said that the school districts in Wyandotte County, and most school districts in the state, were not in favor of the block funding bill. It did have some support from the Blue Valley and Shawnee Mission school districts in Johnson County, she added. One elementary school to the north of Easton may have to close because of the funding.
The candidate forum, with more comments from the KCK school board candidates and other candidates for office, will be shown on the KCKCC cable television channel. The election is April 7.
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Election Commissioner Bruce Newby today announced that there was no change in the vote recount. The Board of Canvassers approved the recount total at its meeting today. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert) One vote separates second and third place in primary results
by Mary Rupert
After a recount of votes Wednesday resulted in the same outcome, the primary election results were certified this morning. Nathan Barnes was still one vote shy of going on to the general election.
Wyandotte County Election Commissioner Bruce Newby said the recount showed the same results as after the initial voter canvass Monday morning. The recount totals were Melissa Bynum, 1,129; Mark Gilstrap, 1,105; and Nathan Barnes, 1,104; for Unified Government Commissioner, 1st District, at large.
Melissa Bynum, who led in the vote totals by 24 votes, said it would be important to get out to vote in the general election.
“A low voter turnout is going to be indicative of a close race,” Bynum said. “I would love to have a huge voter turnout.
“It’s important for people to understand if this process we’ve been through this week doesn’t highlight the importance of your vote, then you can’t learn that lesson,” Bynum said. It illustrates the importance of a vote as dramatically as anything she’s ever seen, she added.
Mark Gilstrap, who made it to the general election with only one vote to spare, said, “We’re very excited about the end results that we will be moving on to the general election.”
“I tried to impress on my friends before the primary to get out and vote, that every single vote counts. And this is the proof that every vote counts,” Gilstrap said.
If the general election is anything like the primary, it should be a fair and decent process, he said.
Barnes did not attend today’s Board of Canvassers meeting at the Election Office, 850 State Ave. Newby said that he had called Barnes on Thursday to inform him of the vote recount total.
Newby said the votes were counted by hand by precinct for the Unified Government Commissioner, 1st District at large race. A supervising election judge and 12 workers were convened for the recount on Wednesday, March 11, he said.
Two-person teams sorted the ballots cast by precinct, followed by sorting precinct ballots by candidate, and then hand-counted all the ballots, according to the election commissioner. Each sort and count was verified at least twice, Newby said.
Barnes was required to pay a bond in order to do the recount.
Newby said that ballots are scheduled to go out next Wednesday, and he hasn’t been able to print them yet.
Melissa Bynum, who was first in the primary election results for Unified Government commissioner, 1st District at large,, said today that the close contest illustrates the importance of a vote as dramatically as anything she’s ever seen. (Staff photo by Mary Rupert) Mark Gilstrap, who made it to the general election with only one vote to spare, today said, “This is the proof that every vote counts.” (Staff photo by Mary Rupert)
