On May 15 the Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208 school board met in a special session to swear in new members and to elect its officers following the April 17 election. New members James Marciniak of Riverside and MariAnn Leibrandt of Brookfield were sworn in along with reelected incumbents Larry Herbst and Sue Kleinmeyer.
The board had planned to swear in the members at its regularly scheduled meeting on May 22, but then realized that they were required by law to swear in members within 30 days of their election.
Herbst could not quite make it back from a business trip in Florida in time for the meeting last Tuesday, so he took his oath of office via cell phone at Midway Airport minutes after stepping off an airplane.
As Herbst stepped off the curb of the pick up area trying to get better cell phone reception, a limousine ran over Herbst’s big toe, but Herbst said that he was not injured. After the swearing in, the board voted unanimously to select Herbst to serve again as the president of the school board, even though Herbst finished fourth in the eight-candidate field.
“I appreciate the faith my board has in me,” said Herbst.
Kleinmeyer, the leading vote-getter in the election with 2,762 votes, was elected vice president of the school board, replacing Nancy Chmell, who decided not to run for reelection after serving two terms on the RB board.
Herbst paid tribute to Chmell, who he said was instrumental in persuading the school to hire Jack Baldermann as superintendent.
“I really do believe she has been the most important board member in the history of the school,” said Herbst, who added that RB today is largely a school that was the vision of Chmell.
The board also said goodbye to perhaps its best-liked member Marty Crowley. Crowley finished fifth in the voting, 77 votes behind Herbst. Herbst, Crowley and Kleinmeyer all ran together as a team.
“He was probably the most popular guy on the board,” said Herbst. “Everybody trusts him.”
Crowley was one of the leaders of the effort to pass the 2006 bond referendum, which is funding the addition and expansion of RB that is scheduled to begin this summer. Crowley was appointed to the board to serve out the term of Greg Franzo, who had resigned from the board. It was the second time Crowley had been appointed to the board to fill out a term of someone who had left the board and the second time Crowley failed to get elected to the board.
Marciniak ran as part of a team that challenged the incumbents, but finished well ahead of his allies David Hilpp and Chris Robling who finished in sixth and seventh place respectively.
