Rule modifies candidate process | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

Each candidate, even the five appointed by the governor, now needs approval from eight of the 11 commissioners to have their name sent to the governor, who appoints new school board members from among those names.

Before the commission changed the rule last night, candidates had needed only six votes - easy to get if Gov. Martin O'Malley's five appointees voted as a bloc.

Yevola Peters, the county director of minority affairs and Mr. Leopold's appointee to the commission, said Mr. Leopold did not tell her to propose the change. Rather, the idea came to her after she spent some time thinking about the commission's voting policy, she said.

"It gives more of an opportunity to narrow (the commission's choices), in my opinion, because otherwise everyone who applied could be submitted," Ms. Peters said.

The commission voted on the change after hearing public testimony about the school board applicants Monday night. Thirteen people are in the running for two open seats.

The 11-member commission, which was created by the legislature last spring, is charged with sending at least two candidates to the governor for each open seat on the county Board of Education. The governor must then appoint new board members from among those candidates.

The commissioners will vote on the candidates Monday. Joshua Greene, commission chairman and one of Mr. O'Malley's appointees, was one of three commissioners who opposed the change.

"I felt the commission had already adopted a process and I didn't feel the need to alter it," Mr. Greene said.

In previous years, local organizations caucused to nominate candidates, and the governor could either appoint those people or anyone else he wanted.

Two seats are open on the school board this spring - board president Tricia Johnson's at-large seat, and a new District 32 seat created by the legislature last year.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. appointed Mrs. Johnson, a former GOP official and longtime school activist, to the school board in 2003.

Among the members of the nominating commission, five are appointed by the governor, one by the county executive and five by local organizations: the teachers union, the school-based administrators union, the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, the County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations and the Anne Arundel County Community College Board of Trustees.

Mr. Greene has said the law that created the commission last year was light on details. It didn't specify how the commission would choose the candidates it sent to the governor, so in February the commissioners chose to send any candidate that garners a simple majority of commissioners' votes.

The three commissioners who voted against changing the voting policy were Mr. Greene and Matthew Tedesco, two lawyers appointed by Mr. O'Malley, and Sandra Anderson, the chamber of commerce appointee. Seven commissioners voted for it.

Arthur Ebersberger, the community college appointee, was absent.

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