BRANDON — Voters in all eight Rutland Northeast towns on Tuesday not only approved the proposed school governance unification plans, they also voted for candidates to create one, 13-member Otter Valley Unified Union School Board and a four-member Barstow District Board to oversee the new school districts.
While the number of board representatives a town receives is based on population, there are also four “at-large” board seats weighted equally to the town seats.
Residents in every town voted on each of the board seats.
The new OVUU Board will be a 13-member board broken down as follows:
• One member each from Goshen, Leicester, Whiting and Sudbury.
• Two members from Pittsford.
• Three members from Brandon.
• Four at-large members from any of the six towns.
The Barstow Unified Union School District Board would be a four-member board made up of:
• One member from Mendon.
• Two members from Chittenden.
• One at-large member from either town.
The new OVUU Board is composed of:
BRANDON
Richard White (one year)
Debbie Boyce (two years)
Lisa Kenyon (three years)
PITTSFORD
Bonnie Bourne (two years)
Sue Markowski (three years)
Jim Rademacher (at-large, one year)
Michelle Rawls (at-large, one year)
LEICESTER
Angela Ouellette (one year)
Greg Bernhardt (at-large, two years)
SUDBURY
Laurie Bertrand (three years)
Linda Kokinis (at-large, three years)
WHITING
Becky Bertrand (two years)
GOSHEN
David Bishop (two years)
The new Barstow Unified School Board is comprised of:
MENDON
Erica McLaughlin (three years)
Michelle Erickson (at-large)
CHITTENDEN
Debra Singiser (three years)
Kathleen Cunningham (at-large)
In district-wide voting, Markowski got the most votes overall, 621.
There were only two head-to head races decided on Tuesday. For a three-year term as a Brandon representative on the board, Kenyon outpolled Michael Lufkin, 408-234. In the race for a three-year at-large term, Kokinis (313) defeated Tierney O’Meara (228).
The new boards will convene in the near future to lay out the plan going forward, said Superintendent Jeanne Collins. There is much work to be done regarding an overarching budget that will be presented to voters on Town Meeting Day in March.