JAMESTOWN – The 2017 School board elections and budget votes took place yesterday, with voters approving the budgets for all of Chautauqua County’s 18 school districts.
In addition to all budgets passing, all of the other propositions that appeared on the ballots for each respective district were also approved, with the only exception being a proposition in the Pine Valley School District to reduce the seats on the board of education. That proposition was defeated with 125 “no” votes to 71 “yes” votes.
JAMESTOWN VOTERS APPROVE BUDGET, SCHNARS RETURNS TO SCHOOL BOARD
In Jamestown, voters approved an $85 million budget by a vote of 504 to 106. That spending plan included no tax increase and also had no layoffs or staff reductions.
In the school board election race, incumbents Paul Abbott and Shelly Leathers won reelection. The third seat will go to Christine Schnars, who was previously on the school board for several years, up until June 2012 when she failed to receive enough votes in that year’s elections. Incumbent Tom Pope chose not to run for reelection this year.
JPS VOTE TALLY
- *Paul Abbott: 459
- *Rachelle “Shelly” Leathers: 376
- Christine Schnars: 343
- Frank Galeazzo: 249
- Fannell Leeper: 247
* Notes Incumbent
The district’s bus proposition also was approved.
In the other local school board races that featured contested ballots, Jennifer Olson and Tom Frederes were the two top vote-getters in the Falconer School District, were two seats were up for election. And in the Chautauqua Lake School District, which had three seats up for a vote, the top vote getters were Mary Lee Talbot, Jay Baker, and Deborah Cross-Fuller.
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