This article has been updated.
It appears that the 2009 Las Cruces school board election may be remembered for an anti-incumbent mood.
Leonel Briseño and Gene Gant, who have been LCPS board members for eight years, appeared on their way to losing late Tuesday, according to the Las Cruces Sun-News.
In the District 2 race, Serena Shoop led Briseño with 226 votes to his 123, with two precincts’ votes yet to be counted. And in the District 3 race, Gant was in third in a close race, winning 225 votes to 283 votes for Merrie Lee Soules and 288 votes for Maria Flores.
District 1 Board Member Chuck Davis was unopposed and re-elected.
Davis, Briseño and Gant, all elected in 2001, were involved in dealing with the fallout from the uncovering of secret contracts between the former board and then-Superintendent Jesse Gonzales in 2001 and 2002, a scandal that led to the recall of the other two board members and the convictions of the entire board that preceded them for violating the state Open Meetings Act. The three men dealt with controversy for years after that as the board hired two unpopular superintendents in national searches, superintendents the board later ousted.
Things have been relatively quiet, however, since the board hired Stan Rounds to head the district in 2007.
Meanwhile, a bond that would continue an existing property tax and provide $20 million for the Doña Ana Community College was also on its way to approval in Tuesday’s election. The Sun-News reported that 1,705 had voted for it and 657 had voted against it. A bond that would provide $3.7 million for the Hatch schools was also approved.
In the contested Hatch and Gadsden school board races, the votes were pitiful. In Gadsden’s Chaparral-area district, incumbent Craig Ford defeated challenger and former Board Member Chuck Gonnell with six votes to two. Yes, that’s 6-2. And in Hatch, Terry Berridge, a candidate for the Garfield-area district, won with five votes. The other candidate on the ballot, Steve Bouvet, didn’t receive a single vote.
Update, 11 a.m.
Briseño and Gant have lost. You can get the unofficial results from the Sun-News by clicking here. Meanwhile, the turnout in Hatch and Gadsden wasn’t quite as bad as I originally reported, but still bad. That’s also in the Sun-News article.
Update, 11:20 a.m.
In the race to replace Gant, there’s a two-vote difference between Maria Flores, who has 527 votes, and Merrie Lee Soules, who has 525 votes. Gant has 311 votes.
County Clerk Lynn Ellins said in an interview that there are two qualified provisional ballots in that District 3 race, so unless both go to Soules, Flores will win. Ellins said the state’s new automatic recount law doesn’t apply to school board elections, so unless one of the candidates demands a recount there won’t be one. If there’s a tie, the race would come down to a coin toss.
The two provisional ballots will be opened when the canvass is conducted at 9 a.m. on Friday.