By Jeff Lipton
It was an excellent turnout, said Sam Donato, District 15's interim assistant superintendent for business. It was an excellent exercise in democracy.
He said 10,799 votes were cast out of about 20,000 eligible voters, which is more than 50 percent, an unprecedented event. The previous high took place in May 2001 when 4,934 voters cast their ballots.
About 11,000 people is unprecedented, said school board president Frank Argento. It never happened before. It's an historical event.
But the campaign, which got dirty at times, threatened to tear the community apart, as Jewish parochial school parents supporting the candidacy of Jay Gelman and Mel Lifshitz, the two candidates backed by ALERT, Association for Learning and Education with Responsible Taxation, were pitted against public school parents backing Licatesi and Harris under the banner of Alliance for Lawrence Public Schools (ALPS). Vicki Fishof was running as an independent candidate.
Licatesi defeated Gelman by collecting 59 percent of the vote. Harris beat Lifshitz and Fishof by garnering 58 percent of the vote.
I just hope we're there for all the children of the community, Argento said. We need to make decisions that are in the best interests of all the children and the taxpayers. I'm sure we will work towards that. The community needs to get back together and end the divisiveness.
We can't be divided. We must be united and do what we can to bring all sides together in the best interests of the kids. That's what I've been doing throughout the whole year, believe it or not.
One district official said the vote was the culmination of a civil war with votes going strictly along partisan lines.
Both Gelman and Lifshitz said they would like to congratulate Licatesi and Harris on earning a hard-fought victory.
I'm disappointed that we weren't victorious, Gelman said. You don't get in the campaign without hope to win it. But he said the message that the budget was unacceptable got across to the voters who overwhelmingly rejected it. On behalf of parents who attend private schools, Gelman offered his assistance in trying to help the district get out from under its money woes. He also offered an olive branch to public school parents.
We all live together, he said. We're all neighbors. And we all share the burden of educating over 7,000 students in the district.
He congratulated ALPS for doing a tremendous job in getting the vote out.
He did not see the results of the May 21 election as a step backward for private school parents to have more say in what goes on in the district. I think the fact that we got well over 4,000 [apiece] shows that the private school community is involved and a large percentage of private school parents do vote. We lost because of a numbers situation.
He expressed hope that the ill feelings that may have developed between the private and public school parents and the harsh rhetoric on both sides could be put aside in the best interests of the district's children.
I personally have no hard feelings and I'm hoping we can get together and work together because a lot of kids need our help. And we should focus all of our energy on that, Gelman said.
Lifshitz added, We should try to work together to become one cohesive group because we are responsible for all the children in District 15. I congratulate Anthony Licatesi and Rose Harris and I hope they live up to the promises they made to represent all the children in the district.
He said he will continue to attend school board meetings and remain active in District 15.
Fishof said, I think the community has spoken...Over 10,000 people turned out for this election.
Harris and Licatesi did not return phone calls.
