Contrasts outline school race

Incumbent Sandra Nicholson defends her record against challenger Alan Minthorn, who touts his experience as a teacher.

By ROBERT KING, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 3, 2002

When it comes to gauging Sandra Nicholson's tenure on the School Board, it is almost as important to look at what she has stood against as what she has stood for.

She opposed Wendy Tellone's appointment as superintendent, key design elements for the county's two newest schools and a series of high-profile benefits for top school officials.

Frequently, she is on the losing end of crucial board votes. Even on lesser issues, she often loses, 4-1. She counts it as being independent. Yet, it was the times when Nicholson voted with the majority that she and the district encountered the most trouble.

Nicholson joined the rest of the board in voting for a health insurance plan that rang up nearly $5-million in debt before it could be stopped. Two years ago, she voted for a budget that wound up being so sloppy and overly ambitious that it took a $2.4-million midyear cut -- including reductions in classroom budgets -- to bring it into line.

Alan Minthorn, a teacher and parent seeking to unseat Nicholson, said his opponent must bear at least partial blame. After eight years of Nicholson in the District 5 seat, Minthorn said it is time for a fresh perspective -- namely his.

Nicholson and Minthorn offer voters two distinctive personalities in a nonpartisan race that will be decided Sept. 10.

Nicholson admits she is not a great communicator. She has little to say during most School Board debates. At times, when the tide is against her, she seems to stew in anger.

Other board members have referred to her as their resident authority on construction matters. Her pet peeve is buildings with flat roofs, which she says are prone to leaking. When it comes to designing schools, she prefers simple -- not pretty.

Unlike Nicholson, Minthorn is quite a talker. At times, his language is salty. He is apt to answer questions with a string of anecdotes about teaching at Springstead High School -- with its back-talking students, crowded halls and inept decisionmaking.

For most of the campaign, Nicholson and Minthorn had a friendly debate. Recently, the gloves came off.

Minthorn said Nicholson lacks a basic understanding of what matters to schools. Instead of crowding and low teacher pay, he said, she is fixated on flat roofs and reviewing books she considers inappropriate for students to read.

"To me, there is a lot that's disturbing," he said.

Nicholson said she doesn't know much about Minthorn. After all, he has lived in the county for only five years. But she questions Minthorn's commitment to his students since he would have to leave them behind immediately if he is elected to the School Board.

"If it were me, I would have taken a leave (for the year)," Nicholson said. "I have a problem with teachers who quit in the middle of the school year."

Until recently, Minthorn made little of the School Board's troubled finances -- an issue that has consumed the other School Board race, in District 1. At first, he blamed it on the frequent turnover of finance directors.

But recently, Minthorn said the board -- read Nicholson -- should have been more aggressive in trying to sort out the financial mess of the fall of 2000, when it was not clear whether the district was sitting pretty or on the brink of disaster. More people and more resources should have been thrown at the problem sooner, he said.

"If you do a minimal job of (oversight), you get minimal results," Minthorn said.

For months, Nicholson looked at the uncertainties and blamed them on then-finance director Sara Perez. As it turns out, the board would have finished the 2000-01 budget year with more than a $1-million deficit had it not been for cuts made after Perez sounded the alarm. In a recent interview with the Times, Nicholson acknowledged that those cuts were necessary and that it would have been more difficult to trim the budget had the board waited longer.

She admitted the health insurance program she voted for turned out to be "a mess."

Looking back, she said, then-Superintendent John Sanders failed to show leadership in sorting out the trouble. Financial expertise isn't her area, she said.

"You can hold me accountable. But I did the best I could with the information I had from the experts," Nicholson said. "We are all responsible. I may go down for this, but I was doing my job."

Thanks to a $3.3-million surplus that finance director Carol MacLeod found in a long-overlooked corner of the budget, it appears now that the board and the district have weathered the storm.

"There is a God," Nicholson said.

For Minthorn, the road to the School Board race followed an unusual course. He was one of many Ridge Manor residents who came before the County Commission and asked the commission to stop Brooksville Regional Hospital's proposed move out of Brooksville.

In the end, the residents lost. But the east-siders gained some concessions about ambulance services that, Minthorn said, made the move easier to stomach.

What's more, Minthorn found he enjoyed venturing into the political arena.

He began thinking about running for a commission seat. But then Minthorn had a conversation last fall with Tellone, the superintendent, who stopped by Springstead to chat with staffers.

Minthorn said he shared some thoughts with Tellone about how Hillsborough County schools do things differently. When he mentioned an interest in the commission, Minthorn said, Tellone suggested he try the School Board.

He talked it over with family and friends and decided to try.

Nicholson heard about Minthorn's story from an acquaintance and asked Tellone about it. She said Tellone denied it.

To the Times, Tellone said she recalls talking with Minthorn -- one teacher in a long line of staffers who waited to speak to her that day last year -- and that he mentioned his interest in politics. But she doesn't recall the specifics of what she told him.

"I can't remember," she said. "I couldn't tell you all the details."

Tellone said she intends to remain neutral in the race. "I have chosen no one," she said.

Whatever the case, Minthorn has been laying the groundwork for a political career for some time. He is president of the Rotary Club of Hernando East. He was active at Eastside Elementary School and pushed for the school's adoption of mandatory student uniforms.

"I have the educational background -- if you will, the academic training. I have the career experience. In addition, I have the volunteer participation at the school advisory council," Minthorn said. "I have the breadth and the depth to be a qualified candidate."

For all his talk about teaching, Minthorn's return to the classroom last fall was inspired more by economic reality than a desire to shape young minds.

As he has told voters at stump meetings, Minthorn returned to teaching two weeks after Sept. 11 because the business he was in -- long-term health care insurance -- quickly dried up.

Needing a paycheck, he turned to teaching. Less than a year later, his name is on the ballot for a School Board seat.

Minthorn is not bashful about discussing his ambition to seek a seat in the Florida Legislature. But he said he is committed to serving a four-year term on the School Board. Maybe even two terms.

With a son in middle school, he said, he is not interested in going to Tallahassee for at least another six years. For now, Minthorn said, voters should be concerned about Nicholson and the potential that the School Board could return to the turbulent days of the mid 1990s.

Back then, the board included current members Nicholson, Gail David, John Druzbick and Jim Malcolm. It also had Stephen Galaydick, who is trying this year to regain the District 1 seat.

Minthorn said a reunion of the "troika" of David, Galaydick and Nicholson was "a scary thought" because of their history of voting as one and berating staffers with "vicious personal attacks."

Nicholson said she never made any such attacks -- though she acknowledges Galaydick made his share -- and that the so-called "troika" didn't vote together as much as people think.

While that era included Nicholson's first term, several key issues have arisen in the past four years.

She opposed the design of Chocachatti Elementary School as being too costly and too flashy. In the end, though, it came in under budget, and its design has been widely praised.

She voted for Sanders' request to move the district's printing plant into Nature Coast Technical High School. After Sanders left, she supported Tellone's request to move it back out. The design changes cost from $600,000 to $1-million, depending on whom you ask. Nicholson said she "blew it" by following Sanders' lead the first time.

She opposed giving Sanders $15,000 in retirement money when he left the district for another job in the middle of his contract, even though a board majority initially supported it. Eventually, other members came to see it her way, and Sanders was never given the cash. She opposed the final design of Nature Coast because its roof was designed with only a slight pitch -- not the steep one she preferred. Other board members approved it anyway.

Aside from her support of the health insurance plan, the most critical votes she took came with regard to Tellone.

Nicholson opposed Tellone's appointment as superintendent, the size of her contract and provisions for an $800-a-month car allowance. She opposed Tellone's restructuring of district staff because one staffer was given a $22,000 pay raise.

Still, Nicholson vowed to give Tellone a fair shake once she was in office. And this spring, she gave Tellone high marks on her first annual performance review.

The two have waged modest fundraising campaigns.

Through mid August, Nicholson had raised $4,505. About $1,600 was from her family. But several local Republicans, including Sheriff Richard Nugent, state Sen. Ginny Brown-Waite, Tom Hogan Sr., Bobbi Mills and Mary Ann Dewitt, also contributed.

Not surprisingly, Nicholson was endorsed by the local Republican Executive Committee.

One of Nicholson's contributors was Vince Benedict, the former school finance director who said the monetary problems were not as bad as Perez suggested -- a view Nicholson believed.

Minthorn has raised $4,160, more than half of which is his own money. He has backing from the Hernando Classroom Teachers Association, which gave him $500, and from the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council, which gave him $100.

Other contributors to his campaign include Republican activist Janey Baldwin, former teachers union president Jo Ann Hartge and two prominent local Democrats -- County Commissioner Chris Kingsley and statehouse candidate Gregory Williams.

On the campaign trail, Nicholson has talked most proudly about her effort to save the district $1-million over the next 10 years.

Florida law exempted small school districts -- those with fewer than 125,000 county residents -- from having to pay the cost of their annual state audits. Hernando has grown to 130,000.

Nicholson, who is president of the Florida Small School Districts Council, actively lobbied state Rep. David Russell, R-Brooksville, to raise the definition of a small district to those with up to 150,000 residents. It passed this year.

MacLeod, the finance director, said the change will save the district at least $100,000 a year in audit costs. Over 10 years, it could easily add up to $1-million.

Nicholson said that effort is an example of how she has grown as a board member. "I think I have gotten a lot more active at the state level -- that's helped us," she said.

Minthorn said his classroom experience and his experience in private business make him the better candidate. "I think she tries to do the best job she can with the tools she has," Minthorn said. "I think I've got a better set of tools."

-- Robert King covers education in Hernando County and can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com.

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