Two cordial school board races led to nail-bitingly close results on election night.
District 87 school board
Four candidates seeking three available spots on the District 87 school board turned out to be Tuesday's closest race.
Incumbent board president Mark Wylie persuaded voters to elect him to another term, with 26.8% of the vote. The remaining three candidates — Veleda Harvey, Cathy Lust and Courtney Turnbull — all came within half a percentage point of each other.
With all Bloomington precincts reporting, the unofficial count indicated first-time candidate Lust, a retired school psychologist who spent most of her career in District 87, came up 39 votes short. Absentee ballots are yet to be counted.
The race was a largely cordial one, with challengers Turnbull and Lust generally happy with the district’s direction, hoping to provide voters with choices. Key issues of concern were staff and teacher recruitment, retention and morale.
Lust conceded in a phone call with WGLT, saying she’d reached out to other candidates to congratulate them. She intends to seek the open seat created by Fitzgerald Samedy’s resignation in December 2022. The application window closes Friday.
Heartland Community College Board of Trustees
Incumbents Mary Campbell and Cecelia Long will likely keep their seats on the Heartland Community College Board of Trustees. Campbell picked up 42% of the vote, with Long and challenger David Selzer separated by less than a percentage point.
Heartland trustees were on the ballot in the City of Bloomington, plus McLean, Livingston, DeWitt, Logan and Tazewell counties. Unofficial numbers from the Bloomington Election Commission were last to come in, around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Selzer said he wanted to wait for official numbers, including absentee ballots, to concede, adding that he will accept the results of the election when they are final.
Similar to District 87, the candidates were not driven by specific grievances, but by wanting to advocate for the college and support its continued growth.
“The students are the winners,” Selzer said in a phone call, noting that all three candidates were in the race for the right reasons.
