School boards to hold byelections in June

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/04/2016 (3512 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Three city school boards will hold byelections June 11 after two trustees won seats in Tuesday night’s provincial election and a third was fired last fall.

Officials with the St. James-Assiniboia School Division said Wednesday the city has told the divisions there could be unspecified shared cost savings if they are held the same day.

The city’s elections office has said stand-alone byelections cost $4 to $6 per eligible voter, or $100,000 or so in each urban school board ward.

Scott Johnston, a St. James-Assiniboia trustee in the King Edward/Deer Lodge ward, won the St. James seat for the Conservatives. Colleen Mayer, a trustee in Ward 2 of the Louis Riel School Division, took the St. Vital provincial seat for the Tories.

River East Transcona trustees fired Ward 3 trustee Wayne Ritcher in October after learning the five-term school board member had moved to a condominium in River Heights. Because he no longer lived within the division, he was not eligible to serve on the board.

River East Transcona took the extraordinary move of suing Ritcher for $6,413.14 for the stipend he was paid while not eligible to sit on the school board, and for the division-issued laptop he allegedly has not returned.

Nick Martin

Former Free Press reporter Nick Martin, who wrote the monthly suspense column in the books section and was prolific in his standalone reviews of mystery/thriller novels, died Oct. 15 at age 77 while on holiday in Edinburgh, Scotland.