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Lowell, Price join Tuomy on school board Close election ends with the board's majority coming from the south side of town by Charlie Breitrose T Mandy Lowell edged incumbent John Tuomy by 15 votes for the top spot
in the election, and Gail Price finished third, 450 votes ahead of Barbara
Spreng. The results are not final, but with a small number of absentee
ballots yet to be counted, the winners are not likely to change. Tuomy
expected Lowell to beat him by more, he said Wednesday. "I thought
she would be leading by a couple hundred votes," he said. "My campaign
only spent $4,000 on the race, compared to $14,000 or more (for Mandy)."
Instead of spending a lot of money, Tuomy said he relied on his record
on the board to carry him, though he was a little worried about depending
on that alone. "Every tough decision you make upsets some people,"
Tuomy said. "I have not shied away from taking stands I felt I had to
take to make the district go forward." Lowell, who received 22.3
percent of the vote, ran with the same message--governing by closely
examining the issues before reaching a decision--when she was unsuccessful
as a write-in candidate two years ago. "People were receptive to
the message of good management, and being on the ballot put me over
the top," Lowell said. In the two years between runs for the board,
Lowell also spent a lot of time volunteering in the classroom. "I
think I would have done that anyway," she said. "As people's kids get
older, they get more involved in their schools." The race for the
third and final spot on the board was close, with Price pulling it out
largely due to strong support from the south and west parts of Palo
Alto. Price and her campaign volunteers hit large portions of the
city, she said. She said people were impressed with her background as
a planner with the city of Sunnyvale. "People's concerns were about
enrollment in the middle schools," Price said. "They knew I had worked
on planning and enrollment. I also have kids in middle school and high
school, a message people understood." At her election night party,
one of Price's supporters, Jerome Coonen, serenaded the victorious candidate
with a special rendition of a Gilbert and Sullivan song, which he renamed
"A Perfect School Board Candidate." For Spreng, the outcome was too
similar to her first attempt to get on the board eight years ago. That
year, like this, she finished as runner-up to the last seat on the board.
"I'm disappointed by the outcome," Spreng told her supporters after
the results came in. "But I couldn't be happier with the support I had.
We're still going to have a good school board." She said it is strongly
unlikely she will run again. The future is uncertain for Spreng, who
said she will finish her term as president of Leadership Midpeninsula,
but after that she will look for new challenges. Shelby Valentine,
who finished fifth, said the campaign was great, except for the finish.
"I was gratified by the response of people I met when I was campaigning,"
Valentine said. "I met people who were in sync with what I was saying
about the schools." Another run for the board is a possibility, Valentine
said. The election was a learning experience for Katherine Rudolph,
who was making her first run at office at age 24, and finished second
to last with nearly 1,400 votes. "I was pretty excited (at the results)
considering the effort: no signs, no ads, no endorsements," Rudolph
said. She has not ruled out another run for the board, and says she
hopes to become more involved in the schools. Rudolph would like to
run some workshops at the high school level addressing the move from
high school to college. Superintendent Don Phillips also invited her
to help in his new academy program to help students performing under
grade level, she said. Joyce Osagiede received 427 votes, despite
dropping out of the race in October. A group of parents who support
the installation of lockers at the secondary schools and urged her to
run, vowed to support her even after she left the race.
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