At the March 7 board meeting, trustees voted unanimously to cancel elections that were planned to take place on May 4, effectively giving Place 1 trustee Megan Timme and Place 7 trustee Chris Poteet second terms.
“Because the trustees in places 1 and 7 have filed and they drew no opponents for this election, we are asking the board to cancel the election,” said David Pate, RISD assistant superintendent of finance and support services, at the meeting.
The context
Timme, director of administrative services at the Region 10 Education Service Center, was first elected to her single-member district position in 2021. Poteet, a civil engineer with Freese and Nichols, was elected to his at-large position the same year.
Board members in the school district serve three-year staggered terms and are not subject to term limits. Five of the seven seats on the board are single-member spots chosen by registered voters of specific districts, while the remaining two seats are elected at large by all voters. This voting system is the result of a lawsuit settled in early 2019 that accused the board of Voting Rights Act violations.
What’s next?
Timme and Poteet will be sworn in for their second terms when the RISD board of trustees meets in May.
