Matthew Sheldon will begin a four-year term Tuesday to serve on the Durango School District 9-R board, after unofficial results showed him winning with 4,136 votes and 57.05 percent of the total.
Incumbent Brieanne Stahnke campaigned against Matthew Sheldon for the District D seat. Stephanie Moran ran unopposed for the District B seat.
“I feel great, and I’m overwhelmed by all the support,” Sheldon said Tuesday night. “For the last couple of weeks, I haven’t been looking at what I’m going to be doing, I’ve just been trying to get there. I’ve got a lot to learn.”
Sheldon is planning to attend a district breakfast Thursday, and he will be sworn in and seated, along with Moran, at Tuesday night’s board special meeting/work session.
“I’m really confident in the district leadership, and that they’ll continue moving in the right direction for students, but I was really disappointed in the partisanship I experienced in this election,” Stahnke said.
Voters chose between a candidate who is in the private sector – Stahnke is a project manager for BP – and someone from the education field – Sheldon is the Fort Lewis College campus tour coordinator.
The campaign was relatively low key, with Sheldon running ads on Facebook and Four Corners Broadcasting, while Stahnke ran ads in the Durango Telegraph and passed out yard signs. Because Sheldon failed to file a campaign committee before he began raising and spending money, it wasn’t until late Friday night that it became apparent that he had outfundraised Stahnke by a margin of about 4:1.
Sheldon’s election makes him the second 9-R board member who works in FLC’s Admission’s Office. Board President Andy Burns is the director of admissions at the college.
“The first thing I did when Matt mentioned he wanted to run was check with the (district attorney) to see if there was any conflict of interest in that,” Burns said. “Once that was ruled out, I looked into the policy issues, which don’t allow any board member to try to control the board. Matt and I have a strong relationship that’s honest and transparent with good communications, so I don’t see any problems.”
When Sheldon joins the board, all five board members will either currently work or have worked in the education field. Moran is the GED program manager at the Durango Education Center, and Nancy Stubbs and Kim Martin are retired educators.
After this election, the 9-R board shrinks from seven members to five, as approved by voters in 2013. Greg Spradling and Mick Souder are stepping off the board because their seats have been eliminated.
“While dropping from seven members to five will help us manage the conversation and move us ahead, I can’t thank Greg and Mick enough,” Burns said. “They helped us think innovatively and strategically.”
Burns said Sheldon will have a learning curve to understand its form of policy governance.
“It’s easy to make tactical decisions on the ground,” he said, “but we’re taking a 30,000-foot view and trying to help (9-R Superintendent) Dan (Snowberger) steer the ship.”
On the agenda are some big issues.
“We’ve been dealing with a budget deficit for the last few years,” Burns said, “and we’re going to have to get a sense of what to do and possibly bring a mill levy before the voters. We’ll continue to look at graduation guidelines to have students ready for college and work, evolving ours beyond the state’s minimum.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
Durango School District Board
District D:
Brie Stahnke: 42.95%, 3,114
Matthew Sheldon: 57.05%, 4,136
District B:
Stephanie Moran: 100%, 6,096
