PORT ANGELES — Candidates for a position on the Port Angeles School Board forum emphasized their different approaches to issues they agree upon during a forum Tuesday.
In the Nov. 3 general election, voters in the school district will decide between Port Angeles School Board candidates Dr. Joshua Jones and Gene Erickson for Position 3.
On Tuesday, they faced off at the Port Angeles Business Association meeting at Joshua’s Restaurant.
Jones and Erickson each said they mostly agreed with their opponent’s positions but have different backgrounds and approaches to reach the goals they share.
Forums were held at previous meetings for other School Board candidates: incumbent Lonnie Linn and challenger Rick Marti for Position 4, and Jerusha Henson and Susan Shotthafer for Position 5.
Most questions from the 20 members of the business association who attended the forum asked the candidates about funding and bond measures.
Erickson, 66 — a retired substitute teacher who graduated from Port Angeles High School in 1967 and immediately began working in a local plywood mill — said he is the better candidate because during his teaching career, he worked in many of the district’s school buildings and knows intimately what the district is up against.
“I feel I am the candidate that knows education more,” he said of his years of experience in the classrooms.
Jones, 40 — medical director of Peninsula Behavioral Health and an Army veteran who served in Iraq — said he has two children enrolled in the school district and wants to set a “sensible and sustainable economic policy” while still addressing decaying buildings approaching the end of their usable life spans.
“The community benefits best when we have a vibrant school district and good economy as well,” he said.
Bond measures
Both candidates said they believe it is clear the school district needs to replace aging buildings and plan to study how to do that without excessively large bonds, such as the $98 million high school construction bond proposal that voters rejected in February.
Port Angeles High School is “a rambler,” a nightmare to make safe and secure for students, and older buildings are crumbling, the candidates agreed.
“Maybe we can be more hybrid, keep the buildings built in 1978, and get the $98 million down to something Port Angeles can afford,” Erickson said.
The district also needs more classroom space for elementary schools for a growing enrollment and voter-mandated class size reductions.
Jones said there needs to be a scaled-down bond for the high school to address the most serious needs.
“It’s not safe, and it doesn’t meet the educational needs of modern students. At this point, they’re not even able to get drinking water to fountains in the high school,” he said.
Both candidates agreed that money from the timber arrearage is not going to make a major difference in school funding in the district, and both called it “a drop in the bucket” of the cost of district needs.
Arrearage issue
The question had to do with arrearage, timber the state Department of Natural Resources was authorized to sell but didn’t for a variety of reasons.
At one time, the state simply let the districts have the money, but that has changed.
For every dollar districts get in timber funds, the state takes one out of the regular school budget, Jones said.
While the value of timber managed statewide by DNR is in the billions of dollars, once it is distributed to all of the local taxing districts, the amount would not be enough to offset the cost of building new schools by much and would not replace a locally funded bond, they said.
“We can’t get any funding if we don’t get a bond,” Jones said, referring to the state process in which communities approve a bond, and the state repays to the district a percentage of that bond after construction is complete.
The percentage reimbursed by the state changes each year, dependent on many factors, such as how many schools apply, how much money is in the state fund and the district’s low income enrollment.
Ballots are scheduled to be mailed to voters today.
The last day for residents to register in person at the Clallam County Courthouse Elections Office is Oct. 26.
