Forest Lake: Eleven vie to fill vacant seat on school board

Eleven people interested in filling the seat that was left vacant last month following the resignation of Forest Lake Area School Board member Luke Hagglund will be interviewed next week by the six remaining members of the school board The applicants include Glen Berg Andi Courneya Scot Doboszenski Princesa Hansen Paul Pease Jeff Peterson Kenneth Rutford Tom Schulzetenberg Jim Smith and Daniel Tuott Another candidate who will be interviewed is Laura Ndirangu who was a candidate during the school board voting The school board voted to include an additional finalist from the pool of people who ran for school board last year but did not win a seat Ndirangu received nearly of the vote in coming in fifth behind current board member Tessa Antonsen The school board will interview each candidate at a special board meeting on Wednesday starting at p m Each interview is scheduled to last minutes Following the interviews the board will break into two sub-committees Each committee will select up to two applicants for final consideration at Thursday s board meeting Once a candidate is selected there is a -day waiting period prior to final appointment to the school board made on Jan Orientation of the appointed school board member will be Dec -Jan a ceremonial oath is planned for the Jan board meeting Hagglund resigned on Oct citing a move out of the district The original plan for appointing Hagglund s replacement proposed by School Board Chairman Curt Rebelein was controversial A board agenda item published before the Oct meeting stated that the board planned to right now vote on a resolution appointing Doboszenski one of the applicants for the position to fill the remainder of Hagglund s term his term expires on Jan Hagglund stated the Pioneer Press that he planned to vote on Doboszenski s appointment himself An attorney for Guidance Minnesota however sent a letter to Rebelein on Oct stating that the vote would be illegal because Hagglund s resignation did not take effect until after the meeting The board decided against that plan and voted instead to hold a special meeting to determine a different process and timeline to fill the vacancy The new board member will serve on the board for the calendar year Related Articles More snow on the way Here s how much we could get this weekend Washington County dad pleads guilty to child endangerment after UTV crash It s back to the drawing board for Lakeland in its search for new city hall Woodbury cop and son survive DUI crash urge holiday partiers to find another way home Washington County emergency alert system is victim of cyberattack