Celani, Bartholomew, McDermott, Torres win seats

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By Joshua Bassett

The Granville CSD Board of Education faced a lot of possible changes Tuesday night, as four seats were open on the board with nine candidates running.

However, the votes of Granville kept nearly all of the incumbents on the board with one of the new candidates running being elected to a spot on the board.

Molly Celani was the top vote-getter with 422 votes, followed by incumbents John McDermott who had 390 votes, Jo-Lynne Bartholomew with 383 John McDermott bwvotes and Nekia Torres finished fourth with 338 votes.

“I am honored that the voters have confidence in my abilities,” Celani said. “I will try the best I can to make sure what needs to get done does, and I’m very community oriented.”

Celani added that she believes voters chose her because they have faith in her because of her knowledge of the school system and her being an advocate for the Granville area.

Ed Valdyka finished fifth with 306 votes, John Shaw finished sixth with 295 votes, and incumbent Dan Nelson finished seventh with 291 votes. Phil Berke finished eighth with 280 votes and Shirley Kunen ninth Jo-Lynne Bartholomewwith 124 votes.

Celani, McDermott and Bartholomew were all elected to three-year terms and Torres will serve the last year of former board member Kevin Ely’s term.

“I’m glad. I’m really excited to continue,” Bartholomew said.

Bartholomew said that her positive outlook and being there for the children were reasons that voters chose her for the board.

McDermott said voters chose him to be re-elected to the board because he is reasonably moderate, consistent and cares about education.Nekia Torres bw

“I just thank the community for all their support and I’ll try to not let them down,” McDermott said.

Torres’ name was visible around town as there were many signs promoting her for the school board and she said that those signs, along with a community presence, going to activities and campaigning, were reasons that voters voted for her.

“I’m excited. I’m just glad to still be a part of it,” Torres said.

Granville CSD Secretary to the Superintendent Connie Resetar said that 757 people voted in the election and there were 40 absentee ballots.

Superintendent Mark Bessen said that the voting machines used in the election have zero margin of error and this will likely be the last year the machines are used as they need repairs and the company who fixed them went out of business. He added that next year the voting will be done electronically and that they have already been in contact with the county about it.

Somich said that the budget for the school district passed by a vote of 488-183 and the buses passed by a vote of 440-197.

The new budget is for $26.6 million and represents a 2.72 percent, or a $705,863 increase from last year’s budget of $25.9 million.

The bus vote was whether or not to approve the purchase of three 65-passenger buses.