George,

I believe that Lloyd Snook missed the last city council meeting, which may explain why he inadvertently misrepresents what I was advocating for in my public comments at the 11/21 public hearing on how to elect the school board.

Like Lloyd and almost every resident who spoke at the public hearing, I believe that it makes sense to create wards for school board elections. Like Lloyd, I specifically support having a mixed ward/at-large system for school board elections. I never argued for "rushing" the ward-creation process, and I have no problem with the May 2006 school board election being organized in an at-large manner.

I hope that council will move forward with the ward creation process sooner rather than later, because we want to have the wards in place at least by early 2007 so that potential school board candidates have plenty of time to understand the electoral context in which they will be running for the November 2007 election.

Jeffrey Rossman (electronic mail, November 29, 2005)