Tuesday runoffs also include a Muscogee County School Board race

With a controversial Georgia governor’s race, plus other statewide contests and a citywide Columbus Council seat to be decided in the July 24 runoff elections, the two candidates in the remaining Muscogee County School Board race hope District 2 voters remember them.

It’s easy to get lost in the buzz of the other races when your contest is on the ballot in only five of the county’s 26 precincts. And it’s an even tougher task to motivate voters in the middle of summer. But that’s the challenge facing retired Muscogee County School District teacher Mike Edmondson, 63, and Kar-Tunes Car Stereo owner Bart Steed, 60.

They emerged from the May 22 nonpartisan general election as the top two finishers in the three-way race. But neither garnered a majority of the votes, forcing the runoff.

Edmondson received 47 percent, Steed 30 percent and Aflac claims specialist Sheryl Hobbs McCraine 23 percent. Out of 16,052 registered voters in District 2, only 4,323 of them (27 percent) actually voted in any race during that election and only 3,944 of them (25 percent) actually voted in the District 2 school board race.

As the frontrunner, Edmondson insisted he isn’t concerned about generating enough awareness about his runoff race.

“I don’t know that it’s at the top of everybody’s mind, but it’s top-of-mind for a lot of people I know,” Edmondson said.

Steed admitted, “One of the biggest tricks is to get enough people out there to vote and hopefully make a good decision.”

Although the school board is a nonpartisan governing body, the Edmondson vs. Steed race will be on the Republican and Democratic ballots, as well as the nonpartisan version, so any registered voter in District 2 can make a choice in that contest. But some observers have speculated that the high-profile Republican statewide races, especially the Casey Cagle and Brian Kemp campaigns for governor, give Republicans more incentive to vote in the nonpartisan races than Democrats, who have only the state school superintendent primary to decide.

In fact, the trend in the Muscogee County three-week early voting period, which ended Friday, supports that theory. The Ledger-Enquirer reported earlier this week that Republican voters were averaging 65 ballots per day, the Democrats 40 and the nonpartisans five.

And the Republican Party member in this nonpartisan race is Steed; Edmondson is an independent.

Steed figures his political affiliation and his attendance at local GOP meetings gives him an advantage over Edmondson, but he cautioned, “I believe everybody wants the school district to come up better, whether they’re Republican or not.”

Edmondson acknowledged District 2 voters are majority Republican — but noted that he won all five precincts in the May 22 election:

▪ Britt David: Edmondson 39 percent, McCraine 33 percent, Steed 28 percent.

▪ Cornerstone: Edmondson 45 percent, Steed 29 percent, McCraine 26 percent.

▪ St. Mark/Heiferhorn: Edmondson 52 percent, Steed 28 percent, McCaine 20 percent.

▪ St. Peter: Edmondson 46 percent, McCraine 35 percent, Steed 19 percent.

▪ Wynnbrook: Edmondson 46 percent, Steed 40 percent, McCraine 14 percent.

“I’m not working for one party or the other,” Edmondson emphasized. “I’m working for people. I consider myself an issue person, not a party person.”

One of the issues in this race has been whether Steed has a conflict of interest. The Ledger-Enquirer reported March 8 that his Kar-Tunes company has a contract worth an estimated $165,000 to service the heating, ventilation and air conditioning on MCSD buses. As he said then, Steed repeated Friday that the law allows him to be a candidate and to be elected with such a contract but requires him to relinquish the contract before he would join the board Jan. 1.

Ironically, Edmondson briefly relinquished his part-time job with MCSD when an elections official erroneously told him, he said, that he couldn’t be on the ballot for a school board position while employed by the school district. But county elections director Nancy Boren subsequently notified Edmondson that he indeed could continue as the scheduler for Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts but would have to resign before taking office if he wins the election.

A more significant issue, both candidates said, has been this: Who has the background that best prepares him to be a school board member?

Edmondson, the 1990 MCSD Teacher of the Year, taught Advanced Placement chemistry and physics in MCSD for 33 years, with stints at Spencer, Hardaway and Northside high schools. His other awards include Georgia Secondary Schools Science Teacher of the Year and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics. He most recently was in the news for trying to raise money to buy the historic but dilapidated Bibb Elementary School from the MCSD board to establish an “iSTEAM center” for science and arts education. But he couldn’t raise the necessary money before Georgia state rep. Earl Davis bought the property to most likely convert the building into apartments.

Steed, who failed to get into the runoff in the four-way 2014 District 2 race, has 40 years of business experience and has served on several school district advisory or oversight committees, including for alternative education, the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax and the College and Career Academy being planned for Jordan Vocational High School.

The “teacher vs. businessman” dichotomy isn’t completely accurate, Edmondson contends, because he has helped administer school budgets and, set up magnet programs.

“I have everything I think you need for this District 2 position,” Edmondson said.

Steed, however, argued the nine-person board already has enough members with education backgrounds in county-wide representative Kia Chambers, Vanessa Jackson of District 3 and Naomi Buckner of District 4.

“At the end of the day, the school district is a business,” Steed said. “We’re supporting our teachers and our kids, but it’s a business, and you have to know how to treat people, how to handle payroll affairs, disgruntled employees, the budget and be fiscally responsible.”

Another difference between the candidates’ backgrounds is their family life, Steed noted.

“I am a family man, been married for 35 years, and I feel like that’s a good thing for me,” Steed said. “I understand what it’s like to have kids and to have kids in the school system.”

Edmondson, who doesn’t have children and never has married, balked at Steed’s distinction.

“Anybody can insinuate anything they want to,” Edmonson said. “It sounds like desperation.”

Edmondson said his more than three decades in the classroom has enabled him to be influence the lives of approximately 11,000 students and interact with their relatives. “So I’m well aware of how families operate,” he said.

Despite living alone, Edmondson said, two former students call him “dad” because of the impact he has had on their lives.

District 2 representative John Thomas, an IRS agent, is in his first term and didn’t seek re-election. He supported McCraine in the May 22 election. Although neither Edmondson nor Steed asked for his endorsement, Thomas said, he plans to vote for Edmondson.

“Bart has indicated in several interviews that his No. 1 priority is to support the superintendent. So I don’t believe he’s bringing an objective view to the table,” said Thomas, who, along with Frank Myers of District 8, have been the representatives most likely to oppose a recommendation from superintendent David Lewis. “I don’t know if Edmondson will be critical in his thinking, but he has a better feeling of how school administration works and he could be more objective.”

McCraine hasn’t announced any endorsement. The Ledger-Enquirer didn’t reach her for comment before deadline.