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Independent Bergel wins Catoctin seat
The School Board that will be sworn in next January will have seven familiar faces and two new ones.Jennifer Bergel, who ran as independent, swept the Catoctin District with 4,343 votes to 2,982 for incumbent Mark Nuzzaco.
Tom Marshall ran unopposed to take the Leesburg seat left vacant when incumbent Sarah Smith decided not to run again. Four years ago, Marshall lost to Smith by one vote after a recount.
The remaining seven incumbents ran unopposed or won re-election.
Broad Run incumbent Robert Ohneiser appears to be headed back for another four years, after being rejected by the Republican committee for his public criticism of Republican Supervisor Lori Waters. Ohneiser's opponent, Thomas A. "Tag" Greason, ran an energetic write-in campaign but seems to have fallen about 600 votes short.
Unofficial results at the Electoral Board late Tuesday night showed 3,613 votes for Ohneiser and 2,829 write-ins. The Electoral Board will start counting and verifying write-in votes at 1 p.m. Nov. 7. Final results will not be official until the end of this week.
In the Newton-Lee Precinct, there were 435 votes for Ohneiser and 662 write-ins.
The Broad Run unofficial tally also shows 1,180 undervotes, or ballots that seem not to have been marked at all. There is an outside chance that enough undervotes end up in Greason's column to make a difference.
Joseph Guzman faced the stiffest challenge in the Sugarland Run District but took enough votes to win over his two challengers combined. Guzman tallied 2,385 votes. Steve Hammond totaled 1,040 votes, and Ryan Myers 1,147.
Guzman returns for a second term on the School Board as a strong supporter of new academic initiatives and of the federal No Child Left Behind act.
In the Blue Ridge District, John Feegel attempted to capitalize on voter discontent with the delay in building a new high school for students in the west, but lost to incumbent Priscilla Godfrey by more than 1,000 votes.
Godfrey said she has knocked on more than 1,200 doors in the district since last July and carried her message to voters one by one.
Tom Reed will return for a third term in the at-large seat with 27,404 votes to Herb Bryan's 15,019.
In the Dulles District, Robert DuPree,current chairman of the School Board, will return for his second full term with a fairly easy victory over political newcomer Kevin Turner. DuPree had 4,902 voptes, to 3,752 for Turner.
Warren Geurin (Sterling District) and John Stevens (Potomac District) ran unopposed. Geurin will be back for his third term. Stevens will start his first full term Jan. 1, 2008. He was appointed to the seat left vacant by the resignation of John Andrews last winter.
Bergel decided to turn down endorsements from either the Republicans or the Democrats and campaigned without the financial and manpower advantages that those endorsements bring. The School Board, she said, is a nonpartisan post and she intended to keep the campaign the same way. She brings a career as a teacher to the post, and promised during her campaign to promote "green" designs in future school construction to save money that can be spent in the classroom.
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