Miller, Roeckner and Alessio are best mix for District 300

Community Unit District 300 faces some critical situations in the next four years, among them finding a replacement for Superintendent Ken Arndt, who is retiring at the end of the next school year, and coming to terms with the teachers union for a new contract.

In this down economy, when the district recently announced it would lay off dozens of teachers and that numerous vacancies will go unfilled, fiscal prudence is a reigning factor.

The election for three, 4-year terms on the board features two incumbents - 12-year board veteran Anne Miller and one-term member Karen Roeckner - and four challengers: Robert Lee, who has received financial backing from Jack Roeser of the Family Taxpayers Network; David Alessio, a member of the district's facilities advisory committee; Dorota Jordan, a former teacher at the district's charter school; and Tracey Thorpe Perez, a former nurse and attorney who is now a stay-at-home mom.

Mary Warren, whose term is expiring, is not seeking re-election.

Miller is an engaged and knowledgeable board member who would provide some consistency through the potentially turbulent next term. Roeckner also is endorsed.

Alessio is an engineer with a strong bent for financial analysis and is endorsed as well.

While we like the notion that Lee is a watchdog candidate, having received financial backing from Roeser, and having cut his teeth working on the district's policy and legislation committee, the community finance committee and the strategic plan communications committee, we are concerned about his arrest seven years ago for stealing from a college roommate. He says that it taught him a lesson about financial responsibility.

We would advocate that the school board seriously consider some of the ethics rules he has proposed. Some are overreaching, some not.