"Interest in sitting on the Charlottesville School Board has grown, at least for an interim seat.

Five city residents have applied to replace board member Louis Bograd, who is leaving his post in July to move to Lexington, Ky., with his family.

Former Greenbrier Elementary teacher Charles Kollmansperger, business cartoonist Grant Brownrigg, former city Planning Commissioner Susan Lewis and former city School Board members Byron Brown and Muriel Wiggins met Friday’s deadline to apply for the interim position. The School Board must appoint one to finish the remaining five-and-a-half months of Bograd’s term.

State law does not prevent the replacement from also running in November, and members of the community had mixed feelings about the advantage this could offer. Brownrigg is the only applicant who has filed for candidacy in November’s election.

City Registrar Sheri Iachetta said she received several e-mails and phone calls from residents frustrated at the benefits this could provide a candidate.

Karl Ackerman, a parent of two daughters in the school division, questioned why an elected board would appoint a replacement.

“Obviously it gives someone a leg up to be an incumbent,” Ackerman said. He also noted, however, that it could be an asset to the board if a capable and qualified replacement’s stay is extended for a full term.

No election needed

State law stipulates that when there is a vacancy in an elected body - whether a school board or city council - members of that group must appoint a replacement within 45 days. In the city School Board’s case, a special election will not be held because this year because a board election is already scheduled.

Brownrigg filed for candidacy in mid-May, and Kollmansperger and Lewis have said they are interested only in the interim position. Brown and Wiggins could not be reached for comment.

“It would give me an opportunity to get up to speed until the other term starts,” Brownrigg said of his hopes to fill the vacancy.

Kollmansperger, who ran for a spot on the board last year and was a special education teacher at Greenbrier for five years, thought it would be an advantage to serve only in the interim.

By not running a campaign, he said, he could devote more of his energies to school issues.

Variety of candidates

Brown, who graduated from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1986 with a degree in public policy analysis, has three children in Charlottesville schools.

Wiggins previously served for six years on the School Board and has volunteered for several local groups, including Habitat for Humanity and First Night Virginia.

Lewis, a city resident since 1976 who ran with Kollmansperger for the board in 2006, has also served on the city’s Public Housing Authority and the Monticello Area Community Action Agency.

The School Board will allow supporters of the applicants, and the applicants themselves, to speak at its meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Charlottesville High School Media Center. Board members said they will take the statements into account when deciding whom to select." (Matt Deegan, The Daily Progress, June 2, 2007)