And then there were three.
In an 11th-hour twist in party selections for the Board of Education, Lauren Rabin announced her candidacy at the Republican Town Committee’s nominating convention Wednesday night in time to land an endorsement and inject competition into a race that had seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
Rabin, the Republican Town Committee treasurer and a former Greenwich High School PTA president, will join school board Chairman Barbara O’Neill and board member Peter von Braun on the GOP ticket in the Nov. 3 town election. Only two of them can be elected since the Republicans cannot win more than two school board seats in one election.
“I think the challenges that the board faces now between racial imbalance, the rebuilding of New Lebanon School and digital learning really aligns with my skills-set and what I can contribute as a Board of Ed member,” Rabin said in an interview with Greenwich Time, after she was nominated.
Republican Town Committee members deliberate during their nominating convention Wednesday night at Town Hall. At far left, is RTC treasurer Lauren Rabin, who was nominated for a seat on the Board of Education.
TWO OR THREE?
Just a week ago, the GOP school board nominations seemed to be a formality. The RTC’s Executive Committee recommended O’Neill and von Braun because they were only the two running at the time.
Rabin’s entrance into the race at the nominating convention precipitated a lengthy debate among RTC members about the number of school board candidates to endorse. They voted 27-27 on whether they should nominate three, but RTC Chairman Jim Campbell’s vote for a trifecta broke the deadlock.
“I think we had three qualified candidates,” Campbell said after the vote. “I’m sure that they will work hard for the voters’ support, and we’re happy to see them all on the ballot.”
Some Republicans are unhappy with how their party ended up with three. In a lengthy speech that blasted the school board for being run by an “educational-industrial complex,” Chris von Keyserling, an Representative Town Meeting member from District 8, described the nomination of three as a dishonest move to unseat von Braun.
“If we want to have trust and civility among our people, so we can have discourse and come to some kind of consensus, you can’t play these last-minute sucker-punch games,” von Keyserling said. “That’s what’s happening here. This is vital to the educational-industrial complex that people like Dr. von Braun are removed because they’re troublesome to getting what they want. They bring up the inconvenient truths.”
John Raben, a former party chairman from District 1, said nominating three would allow Democrats and independents to decide which Republicans would be elected to the school board.
“I feel very strongly, as I did when I was chairman, that as long as the (electoral) rules are silly, we should play the game,” Raben said. “We should not nominate more candidates than we can elect and assume we’re going to get Republican candidates.”
Others said they were comfortable letting the general electorate decide which Republicans would serve on the board.
“I take Mr. Raben’s point that if you put up three candidates, yes, the Democrats will vote, and, yes, the public will vote,” said Arline Lomazzo, an RTM member from District 6. “But I’d like to think that maybe the public is aware of who’s who.”
COMPETITION
In recent years, members of both parties, as well as others in town, have pushed for more choice. In 2013, two of the current school board members, Republican Peter Sherr and Democrat Laura Erickson, both petitioned to get on the ballot and won. Both had missed out on nominations.
This year, three Representative Town Meeting members proposed an amendment to the Town Charter to increase the school board from eight to 10 members, a change intended to create more choice at the ballot box. The proposal failed, but concerns remained in the community about a lack of options for voters in school board races.
The Democratic Town Committee nominated three school board candidates Wednesday; it recommended only two in 2013.
Rabin said she had contemplated and had been repeatedly asked about running for the school board for several years. But she only decided Wednesday to enter the race.
“I support (voter) choice – that was a motivating factor,” she said. “This is the right time.”
Rabin has experience as a public official, having served on the appointed Board of Social Services.
She has two sons, who graduated from Greenwich High in 2008 and 2011.
This is the second time in three election cycles that the Republicans have endorsed more than two for the school board. They nominated four candidates in 2011 – and also needed a tie-breaking vote then from Campbell to endorse more than two.
O’Neill and von Braun prevailed in 2011, when they were running for their first terms on the board.
“I’m delighted to be nominated again, and I think it’s great that the community is going to have choice,” O’Neill said. “I think that’s what the people want; they want to have choice. I’m all for giving them choice.”
Von Braun declined to comment.
There will not be a primary because a party can put up to four school board nominees on the ballot.
BET NOMINATIONS
There was also competition in the Board of Estimate and Taxation race, with seven candidates vying for six nominations. The five incumbents running for re-election were all nominated, as was former First Selectman James Lash. Leslie Tarkington was the top vote-getter with 51, followed by William Drake with 50, Arthur Norton with 49, Michael Mason with 48, Nancy Weissler with 47 and Lash with 43
Representative Town Meeting member Carl Carlson missed out on an endorsement, as he finished with 14 votes.
