School board candidates dominated the third day of filing week in Clark County, with half of the campaign declarations coming from people looking to sit on their local school district’s board of directors.
From 5 p.m. Tuesday to 5 p.m. Wednesday, a total of 16 people filed to run for various local seats in the Aug. 6 primary elections. All told, 101 candidates have filed for 83 offices across the county since filing week began Monday morning.
The Woodland School District saw two races declared on Wednesday, with incumbent Sarah Stuart filing to run for director of District 1 and newcomer Jeff Wray filing for director of District 3. Neither is facing a challenger, so far.
Two La Center residents also launched campaigns for their local school board. Eric Lindberg is the sole candidate seeking to represent District 5, while Wendy Chord was the only person so far to file for District 4. Both are incumbents.
Wednesday also saw candidates file to represent the Hockinson, Green Mountain, Evergreen and Vancouver school districts. The former two, Hockinson’s Gordon Smith and Green Mountain’s Eric Lowe, are unchallenged incumbents, and the latter two — Elizabeth Sahler in Evergreen and Chris Lewis in Vancouver — are newcomers facing competitive races.
At the city level, the hotly contested race for Vancouver City Council Position 6 rounded out Wednesday when the last candidate to officially declare a campaign, teacher and union activist Adam Aguilera, filed his paperwork. The five-way race to replace Bill Turlay, the current city councilor not seeking re-election, so far has more candidates than any other single office.
In La Center, Mayor Greg Thornton declared an as-yet uncontested re-election campaign on Wednesday. Over in Battle Ground, new city council candidate Neil Butler filed a campaign running against Candy Bonneville, who finalized her campaign on Monday. Butler and Bonneville are in a race for Position 3, the seat currently held by Steven Phelps. In Woodland, incumbent Carl Chapman filed to retain his Position 4 city council seat and so far remains unchallenged.
Four other campaigns filed Wednesday are for other positions: Bill Ward for the District 2 position at the Port of Camas-Washougal; Rick Steele for the Position 3 commissioner seat at Fire Protection District 3; Heidi Zimmerman for the Position 2 commissioner seat at Cemetery District 4; and Rachel Stuart for the Position 3 seat with Woodland Pool and Recreation. None of those candidates are currently facing a challenger.
In total, 94 offices — from city council seats to cemetery boards — are up for election in 2019. The full list of positions up for election is available on the Clark County Clerk’s website, at www.clark.wa.gov/elections/candidates.
The deadline for any candidate to register a campaign and appear on the Aug. 6 primary ballot is 5 p.m. Friday, May 17.
