Voters in the Marana Unified School District re-elected incumbent vice president John Lewandowski, and chose newcomer Tom Carlson over incumbent president Eric Brandriff in the Nov. 2 election.
The district had five candidates for two seats on the board.
District voters passed a $43 million bond election by a wide margin (see page 16).
Carlson collected 24.98 percent of the 37,080 votes cast for the Marana school board while Lewandowski gathered 24.09 percent. Brandriff collected the least amount of votes, receiving 15.64 percent.
“I was a little surprised … since there was five people running” Lewandowski said Monday evening. “And one incumbent, myself, came in and the other incumbent did not. We just could not figure it out. And then the bond passed overwhelmingly so we figured, well, people are probably pretty happy with the way the district is going right now because they passed this bond overwhelmingly, and yet one incumbent wins and the one incumbent doesn’t.”
Lewandowski and the other members of the school board are now turning their attention to the finances of the district. They are expecting more cuts in school funding from the Arizona Legislature.
“We’re anticipating probably more cuts, so its kind of back to working from scratch as far as ‘what do we do now?’” Lewandowski said. “Because we’ve made so many cuts over the past three years and we anticipate more. And that is not a good feeling.”
Marana Unified School District, 2 elected
Eric Brandriff 15.64 percent 5,827 votes
Tom Carlson 24.98 percent 9,308 votes
Graham Glauser 16.23 percent 6,047 votes
John Lewandowski 24.09 percent 8,977 votes
Dean Spencer 18.57 percent 6,921 votes
