Schools and Education Resolution to Add More Members to School Board Fails at Meeting

Dave Miner

BRADENTON — A resolution that sought to give voters a referendum on adding two 'at-large' board members failed in a split 2-2 vote at Tuesday's Manatee School Board meeting, with Dave Miner and Karen Carpenter supporting, and Board Chair Bob Gause and Charlie Kennedy dissenting.

Introduced by Miner at the June 23 meeting, the referendum would also change representation for the current five board members from county-wide to being elected within their designated districts. Miner has said that adding 2 board members would give taxpayers better representation. 

At that meeting in June, the resolution was approved in a 4-1 vote for purposes of sending it to board attorney James Dye for legal revisions, before coming back to the board for a final vote.

The resolution was criticized by community member and activist Norm Nelson, who questioned whether adding more members to the school board would make it run more efficiently. Before adding two more members, said Nelson, "why don't we have representation where each of the five districts vote for their particular delegate?"

Carpenter said that due to recent population changes, she felt the board should wait until the 2020 census to decide on changing the number of board members, and that more information is needed on the issue as well. "I think it needs more study," she said, and added that she liked her colleague Charlie Kennedy's proposal instead.

At the June meeting, Kennedy proposed remapping districts to make them more fair in his view. He also proposed changing board members' representation so that they are elected in their districts instead of by the entire county. 

On Tuesday, Kennedy said he agreed with Gause's argument from the June meeting that a larger board is harder to manage. Kennedy noted that all Florida counties of similar size had 5-member school boards, and that additions to the board mean two more salaries for a lean-budgeted district.

Miner continued to argue for his resolution after the failed vote, saying the board should support it in honor of their recently deceased colleague Dr. Mary Cantrell. "She voted for it," he claimed, though that vote had been simply for approving to have the board attorney revise it.