Kaneshiki creates stir in board election

Committee that she chairs sent survey to candidates with several questions reflecting her ideas

View the HASD candidate survey

Often holding opinions not shared by other members of the Hollidaysburg Area School Board, Lois Kaneshiki has taken pains this primary election season to cull the selection of Republican candidates to those who may share her views.

From recruiting and collecting signatures for two candidates, physical therapist Melissa Mitchell and accountant Erik Brown, to shelling out $115 from her own pocket in March to prepare a court case removing a teacher union-supported candidate from the ballot because of a paperwork technicality, Kaneshiki's impact has rippled through the pool of candidates for the May 16 primary.

Most recently, the Blair County Republican Committee -- a committee which Kaneshiki chairs while also serving as a school board member -- sent a survey to the eight Hollidaysburg Area candidates seeking four board seats to be filled in November. Several of the survey questions reflect Kaneshiki's ideas that she has discussed at board meetings.

While the letter sent with the original survey stated candidates' participation will influence the committee's decision to recommend their candidacy to voters, Kaneshiki said no endorsements will be made. The committee will instead post the responses for voters' review.

Only two candidates have responded so far, she said.

Kaneshiki stressed in a phone interview that while she proposed many of the survey questions, she did not write all of the 17 questions on the survey. She also stressed that all of the questions were approved by a 10-member Republican sub-committee for the Hollidaysburg Area School Board race, she said.

Although she appoints those members, too, she did not disclose who those 10 members are.

The state public official ethics act does not bar a public official from also holding a leadership role of a political committee that vets election candidates.

However, Hollidaysburg board member Jim Gregory said Kaneshiki's holding of both positions "creates confusion about what's important to Lois: kids and their education, or her political agenda."

The candidates and campaign committee sent the survey and is chaired by Joe Harteis, a Hollidaysburg resident appointed to the position by Kaneshiki.

One question on district educational standards was rescinded from the questionnaire after it was sent out by the County Republican Executive Board. Can­didates were notified by letter.

Only Hollidaysburg Area candidates received a survey from the Republican candidates and campaign committee. Kaneshiki and Harteis said they urged Republican committee members residing in the county's six other school districts to format their own surveys or candidate debates because each school district is different.

Kaneshiki said her involvement in the Hollidaysburg primary election was to level the playing field.

"I get frustrated with things I bring up that people don't agree with (on the board)," she said. "I think everyone means well, but the system is set up to resist any kind of change."

In a follow-up conversation about why she sought a court proceeding to remove teacher union-recommended Nikki Varney from the Republican ballot in March, Kaneshiki said: "Everything is biased towards labor unions, not toward the taxpayer and in some respects not toward students. I wanted to level the playing field."

Varney remains on the Democratic ballot for a school board seat.

At the same time as Kaneshiki removed Varney, a candidate considered by the union as "pro-education," Hollidaysburg Area Teachers Union President Jim Murphy, also went to the courts to remove a candidate by a technicality to give the union's remaining favorites a greater chance.

"We are not going to sit back and let a pro-education candidate be kicked off the ballot," Murphy said.

Mirror Staff Writer Russ O'Reilly is at 946-7435.