Who won?

I promised I would let my loyal readers know how the Orange School Board race I wrote about last week turned out.

The Hunting Valley-resident candidate received a little more than 15% of the vote, and the two incumbents almost equally split the remaining nearly 85%. So they easily retained their seats.

Late last week we (and I assume everyone else in the district) received a letter from the Hunting Valley resident reiterating her concerns and denying she had anything to do with the vetoed attempt to tax Hunting Valley at a different rate.

Unfortunately, the incumbents never directly answered her concerns in a widely-distributed way. I think that is too bad. I don't know if that was a calculated plan or just the feeling they didn't need to. I think one good thing about this election campaign is that it did put some issues before us all, issues that might come back to trouble future requests from the school to increase our property taxes. I do not think it will be wise just to pretend none of it happened. I also think there will need to be some healing between the several communities that share the same school district.

I am happy the election turned out as it did. I hope the Orange Schools will not take the results as a sign they can rest on their laurels or do not need to take questions and critiques seriously.