By Evan Smith
The Edmonds School Board has announced that it is seeking candidates to replace Susan Phillips to represent Director District 4 on the five-member Board.
The Board has asked residents from anywhere in the School District to nominate candidates who live in director district 4 by April 4. People can nominate themselves or others who live in director district 4, which includes Lynnwood west of Interstate 5.
The Board then will invite nominees to apply for the position.
Candidate applications are due April 17, whether candidates have been nominated or not.
The remaining four members of the Board have until June 9 to appoint someone to replace Phillips, who resigned March 11. If the Board can’t make a decision, the five-member Snohomish County Council would have until Sept. 7 to make the appointment. If the County Council can’t decide, the appointment power would go to the governor.
Phillips, who had served as Board president in addition to representing director district 4, resigned from the Board March 11 to concentrate on her family and support her husband through a health problem.
Nominees must live in director district 4. Residents can determine whether they live in the director district, by checking a general map outlining the director districts; a map including school locations within each director district; or a description of the district boundaries; or by contacting Chris Hansen at 425-431-7003 or hansenc@edmonds.wednet.edu.
The appointed candidate would serve until the next regularly scheduled School Board election in November 2015, when the position would appear on the district-wide ballot for the last two years of the term that Phillips won in 2013. The 2015 ballot also will include four-year terms for the three positions that were filled in the 2011 election. The person elected in November 2015 for the final two years of the Phillips position would serve through the 2017 election, when the position will be on the ballot for a full four-year term along with the other position filled in the 2013 election.
Although all members of the School Board must live in one of the five director districts, each is elected by voters from throughout the School District, which includes Brier, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Woodway and unincorporated areas of south Snohomish County.
State law gives the remaining members of the Board 90 days to fill the position. Otherwise, the County Council has 90 additional days to make the selection before the appointing power goes to the governor.
The Board set the timetable and procedures for getting applications for the position at its Tuesday, March 25, meeting.
Board Vice President Diana White has been filling in for Phillips as Board president. The Board has yet to decide on when it will pick a new president.
Phillips first joined the board by appointment in November 2007, before winning election to a full term in 2009 and re-election in 2013.
