BUSD School Board Candidate Forum Set for October 7

INYO350 PRESS RELEASE

BUSD School Board Candidate Forum Set for October 7.
Two Absentees Will Skip Opportunity to Engage the Public.

The November election is drawing closer, and with ballots being mailed out in early October, voters will very soon choose who will hold several important local offices. In response, INYO350 is sponsoring a free public Candidate Forum for the Bishop Unified School District (BUSD) School Board race. This public forum will be held on Wednesday, October 7 from 6:30-8:00PM in the fellowship hall at the Bishop United Methodist Church. All five candidates (three incumbents and two challengers) have been invited to participate and speak that evening. Kristina Blüm Justice will be the moderator.

INYO350 is hosting this forum to help voters learn more about these candidates, their hopes and goals for our schools, and their positions on important decisions affecting the education and well-being of our local students. “Bishop public schools have a big impact on the lives and futures of our children and fellow community members,” notes INYO350 President Harold McDonald. “We offer this event as a community service, to give all BUSD area residents and voters the opportunity to learn more about the candidates and what each—if elected—would offer our students and our schools.”

On October 7, the candidates will give brief opening statements and then take turns responding to school-related questions provided to them in advance. After a brief intermission, the candidates will respond to questions generated from the audience. Light refreshments will be served. The Bishop United Methodist Church is located at 205 N Fowler Street in Bishop.

INYO350 has routinely held candidate forums for local elections—such as the Inyo County Board of Supervisors and BUSD School Board—for many years. We run our forums in a fair and equitable manner, and they are attended by a broad cross-section of our local community and often covered by local news outlets. Impartial community leaders, such as Kristina Blüm Justice and others who are not part of our organization, moderate the evening’s discussions.

Because of the importance of voter education and candidate transparency, we have also routinely promoted other organization’s forums, including those organized by the Free Eastside group, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bishop Chamber of Commerce, and the Sunrise Rotary Club. Such diverse candidate forums provide a very important public service—they allow candidates to appear together to publicly answer a wide range of questions and address the full diversity of our community’s voters and concerns.

Nevertheless, only three of the five BUSD School Board candidates have chosen to attend on October 7: incumbents Claudia Tanner and Virginia Figueroa and challenger Tyler McManus. We are disappointed that both Josh Nicholson and Scott Gadea have declined to appear. Disappointed, because this is the first time a candidate has declined to participate in an INYO350 forum and the first time we are aware of that any local candidate has chosen to skip an opportunity to discuss the issues with other candidates in a large public forum, regardless of its sponsor.

Josh Nicholson’s explanation for not participating was that, “Inyo350 and I have significant differences in our values, priorities, and views on issues that affect our students, families, and schools. I have serious concerns with several positions and priorities promoted by the organization, and I do not believe some of those positions are in the best interests of BUSD students.” Instead of attending the October 7 forum with the other school board candidates, he offered to have a one-on-one debate with a representative of INYO350. Scott Gadea—who Josh Nicholson has endorsed and said he is “looking forward to working with” on the School Board—explained his decision to skip the event by saying, “I just don’t feel this particular forum is the right fit for me or the way I want to engage with the community during my campaign.”

We invite all community members to attend the October 7 BUSD election forum. We are grateful to the three candidates who have accepted this opportunity to engage the public and address the issues affecting our students and our schools.