School board election mailing alleging ‘trickery’ is a trick, these central Pa. Democrats say

Palmyra Area High School 2021 Graduation

The Palmyra Area High School commencement was held at Buck Swank Stadium in Palmyra on June 8, 2021. This fall, the district's residents are seeing a hotly-contested school board race. Vicki Vellios Briner | Special to PennLiveVicki Vellios Briner | Special to PennLive

Palmyra’s seen a lot of contention during the coronavirus pandemic. First, the local restaurant “Taste of Sicily” was fined for non-compliance with the governor’s bans on indoor dining.

More recently, school board meetings have gotten hot and heavy with debates over pandemic policies, to the point where district administrators opted to only take public comment virtually at a September board meeting, and a group of high school students protested against the statewide mask mandate for schools.

Is it really any surprise then, that a hotly-contested school board election would follow?

It has, but, in a twist, the pandemic is now just part of a larger tableau of issues that include property taxes and questions of allegiance to administrators and teachers’ unions, or taxpayers.

There are 10 candidates running for five contested seats, and interest in the outcome has already drawn some big outside bucks. Whichever team wins a majority of the five seats up for grabs this fall will be in the driver’s seat on tax, spending and other issues.

One major point of contention this fall has been a postcard sent to Democratic voters that, upon a casual read, looks like it came from their party as warning about Republican trickery. The mailing identifies the winners of the Democratic primary for school board as “Trump Republicans” who are, in its words, “trying to trick voters by running on the Democratic ticket.”

It is true that the four Democratic nominees named - Mark Bucher, Ryan Patrick, Jim Kreiser and David Laudermilch - are all registered Republicans. But who’s tricking whom is a different question.

The mailing was sent to Democratic voters by the Palmyra First political action committee, a PAC founded by conservative Republicans for conservative Republicans. Palmyra First wants to keep it that way with these flyers, which appear to be intended to suppress Democratic votes for the school board candidates.

That has local Democrats up in arms.

Lebanon County Democratic Chair Dan Sildenick has sharply criticized the Palmyra First mailing as deceitful, arguing in an email that the candidates named “are Republicans who cross-filed in a non-partisan effort to support the Palmyra Area School District from a takeover by candidates who have shown that they want to not raise taxes and cut school programs... They are NOT Trump Supporters and their only interest is in keeping Palmyra School District an excellent school district in Lebanon County.”

In fact, because the traditional intent is for school board races in Pennsylvania to be non-partisan contests, candidates have always had the right to cross-file and run on both Democratic and Republican party primary ballots.

In this case, registered Republicans Bucher, Patrick, Kreiser and Laudermilch did just that. And because there were only five candidates on the Democratic ballot for five school board seats, they all advanced to the general election as Democratic nominees, along with registeredd Democrat Jeffrey Putt.

The Republican nominations were won by Kayla Leiberher, Mandy Braden, Mike Koval, Joshua Jones and Maryann Cini.

Being on the Democratic ballot, by the way, is no kind of inside track in this area - no candidate running solely on the Democratic ticket has won a general election for Palmyra school board in over a decade.

Still, supporters of the Palmyra First committee’s effort say the stakes are too high to take anything for granted.

“What’s driving people is they believe we’ve had a board that one, has not been fiscally responsible; two, has not stood up to Governor Wolf and all of his onerous mandates and has even taken steps to make it more difficult for our kids to be in school,” said Matt Brouillette, a leading advocate for conservative causes as president of Commonwealth Partners and a Palmyra district resident. Brouillette also donated to Palmyra First this spring.

“There’s a strong desire to get real Republicans on the board. Not just those who register as such knowing that’s the only way you can win a school board race,” he said.

The Democratic-nominated Republicans say the real choice here is whether voters believe their promised brand of fiscal responsibility — being willing to raise taxes to the degree necessary to maintain important staff, program and services for students — is better than, say, closing a portion of an elementary school building to keep taxes level.

That’s exactly a proposal raised before the board in 2019, candidate Laudermilch said, that got him interested in school district leadership to the point where he entered the race this year. “They felt that they had to stick to that no tax pledge that got them elected,” Laudermilch said of the 2019 board, “but it would have been very damaging to the community.”

That proposal, to close down six classrooms at the district’s Forge Road Elementary School, was ultimately withdrawn.

Laudermilch is running as a team this fall with Bucher and Patrick, under the slogan “Palmyra First, Not Party First.”

Together, they also seem to be aiming part of their fire at the intervention of other political figures in the race, such as state Rep. Frank Ryan, R-Lebanon County, and the Philadelphia-area businessman Paul Martino’s infusion of $10,000 into the race as a contribution to the Palmyra First committee.

“The outside political influence in our district needs to come to an end,” the three Democratic nominees state on their Web site. “We need to focus on what our students need to learn and succeed. That’s what the three of us are running on. We are working together and come with our own ideas, experiences, and backgrounds.”

Ryan, who represents Palmyra in the state House but does not live in the district, has publicly endorsed all of the Palmyra First PAC candidates, though he also took pains in a Tuesday interview to stress that he had no involvement in creating or planning the flyer that went out to the district’s Democratic voters.

He made no apologies for jumping in with a public endorsement.

Ryan said he’s trying to find and boost fiscally conservative school board candidates across the breadth of his legislative district. Ryan said it’s something he sees it as a matter of financial survival both for districts that are caught between rising pension costs and outdated state funding formulas, and the property owners hurt by ever-increasing local taxes.

That combination of problems requires, he believes, a new level of vigilance from board members.

“This idea that we can just pass on these increases cavalierly from year-in to year-out is a myth,” Ryan said. “We’re trying to get every single school board to start taking those issues seriously, and that’s the reason to get more actively involved with people who have both a fiscal and financial interest.

“There’s a whole group of parents - this is before the mask mandate and vaccination mandates - that were getting involved saying: ‘I can’t keep affording to pay these bills.’”

Mike Koval, one of the Palmyra First candidates, took issue with the idea that his slate would never vote to raise taxes. “I don’t think any of us have ever no taxes. But what I believe in... is fiscal responsibility. We need to look hard at the budget and what we’re spending on every year, and we do have to be compassionate toward those who cannot afford to live in the school district.

“We have to consider our senior citizens, our moms and dads and grandparents who may be on fixed incomes and are struggling to keep their homes,” said Koval, a retired member of the Pennsylvania State Police.

Koval didn’t mention it directly, but critics of district spending really started to find their voice after the approval of a $5.6 million athletic facilities upgrade several years ago.

The fall ballot in Palmyra breaks down like this:

On the Republican ballot and endorsed by both Palmyra First and the Lebanon County Republican Committee for four four-year terms: mother of four Mandy Braden, Joshua Jones, vice president of a local fire protection firm, Koval and Kayla Leiberher, an employee of the House Republicans in Harrisburg; and for one two-year term, Maryann Cini.

They are opposed by those running on the Democratic ticket: Mark Bucher, a retired information technology administrator in the district; Jim Kreiser, a risk management consultant; Ryan Patrick, an executive with a firm that provides technology solutions to banks and other financial institutions; and Putt for the four-year seats. Laudermilch, a pricing manager at Harrisburg-based D&H Distributing, is seeking the two-year seat.

Of the candidates on the Democratic ballot, Kreiser and Putt are incumbents who won school board seats in 2017 as cross-filed candidates in a much less contentious cycle, and Patrick was appointed to the board this year.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.