Four-way race for city trustee seats

Many school board seats in the city and county have been acclaimed

A freelance journalist and podcast producer who recently interviewed school board trustee candidates ahead of Monday’s election has a message for voters who may not have given those positions all that much thought.

“It’s an important decision and we have to take it seriously,” said Ayesha Barmania, who co-hosts the Peterborough Currents podcast with Will Pearson.

A recent instalment of the podcast, which normally focuses on documentaries rather than current affairs, focused on those vying for the public school board seats in the city and county.

Interviewing candidates and speaking with voters helped Barmania, a former CBC radio reporter and writer for Trent University student newspaper the Arthur, gain knowledge about a system she admits she didn’t know much about.

For example, learning that the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board has a budget about $50 million larger than the City of Peterborough.

“That’s a huge amount of money they are responsible for the governance of,” said Barmania, who graduated Trent’s international development studies program in 2015.

With that obligation and our youth in mind, she said it would be “irresponsible” for voters not to take the election of school board candidates seriously.

To that end, the goal of the trustee podcast was to foster education — to provide an election resource for voters. “This decision is too important not to be informed about.”

Overall, Barmania called the candidates are well-informed. Many of them share the same opinions on issues, specifically when it comes to mandates being issued by the province — such as planning to revert to older sexual education curriculum.

All four candidates vying for the city’s two seats on the public school board — incumbents Wayne Bonner and Rose Kitney, as well as Dennis Hildebrand and Steve Russell — feel the current curriculum best represents educational best practices, she said.

Shirley Patterson, acclaimed for the townships of Asphodel Norwood, Havelock-Belmont Methuen and Trent Hills, was the only candidate who said more consultation should’ve be carried out on some of its moral aspects, Barmania said.

Bonner is a former business teacher at Fleming College and former private sector manager first elected as trustee in 2014, while Kitney is a chartered accountant who first served as a trustee from 1994 to 1997.

Russell is a retired educator who has worked as the arts consultant for the board for the past six years, while Hildebrand told Barmania during his interview that he is running because of the experiences of raising his 11year-old son.

There are two other public board regions with single seats — but neither of them are contested leading up to Monday’s election.

In Cavan Monaghan, Douro Dummer, Otonabee-South Monaghan, Julie Chatten has withdrawn her name from contention — although it will still appear on the ballot, leaving incumbent Angela Lloyd — a trustee since 1993 — unopposed.

Incumbent Diane Lloyd, who was elected board chairperson last December, was acclaimed for Trent Lakes, North Kawartha, Selwyn. She has worked in real estate since 2002 and was a federal election candidate in 2005.

Candidates have already been acclaimed for Peterborough city and county’s three positions for the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board.

Braden Leal and incumbent Helen McCarthy have won Peterborough’s two seats, while Emmanuel Pinto won the single Peterborough County seat.

Leal, the son of former MPP Jeff Leal, is in his third year studying environmental chemistry at Trent University.

Pinto, who served on student council with Leal at Holy Cross Secondary School, started at Trent in September. McCarthy is a retired teacher of 37 years.

Gordon Gilchrist, who resigned his seat on the public board in 2016 after being censured by his fellow trustees over insensitive comments, is running to get his seat back as a candidate for the two trustee seats for Cobourg, Port Hope, Hamilton Township and Alnwick-Haldimand Township on the board.