Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting. In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance. - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
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One person, according to the article, who is now running in West Seattle is Steve Sundquist.
Here's a blurb about him from OneNW, an environmental group.
"Steve Sundquist is a community leader and volunteer in Seattle. Formerly the Managing Director of National Accounts and the Chief Information Officer at Russell Investment Group, he is currently putting these skills to work in the non-profit community. In addition to his work at ONE/Northwest, he is a Trustee of the WSU Foundation and a member of WSU's Honors College Advisory Board; a lead partner for Social Venture Partners; and Vice Moderator at Fauntleroy Church, UCC."
He looks like a person with a broad background with a special interest in environmental issues.
During the Phase II closures, when three West Seattle schools were directly threatened, did she step up? I don't remember her doing that.
Did she look after the interests and needs of the Pathfinder community? Why isn't a building for Pathfinder on BEX III? Did she look out for Roxhill or Cooper families?
She didn't object when yellow bus transportation to Washington for West Seattle Spectrum students was revoked.
She hasn't demanded that the District provide a Spectrum school for the West Seattle-South cluster. It is the only elementary cluster in the District without Spectrum.
She hasn't taken a lead on the four period day issue at West Seattle High School. I can't think of anything that she has done for Denny or Sealth, for that matter.
I'm not so sure that her seat was all that safe. She didn't look out for her District constituents very well, did she?