DeSantis-suspended Broward School Board member is locked in tight race with challenger
Broward County voters ushered in a new era for their School Board on Tuesday by electing three new members to replace three whom Gov. DeSantis had appointed while a longtime board member suspended by DeSantis in August was locked in a tight race with her challenger.
In the most closely watched race, the countywide District 8 race, Allen Zeman, 58, who held education posts in the Navy and now runs a consulting firm, was leading in a close race against Donna Korn, 51, the three-term board member whom DeSantis suspended in August.
By 11 a.m. Wednesday, Zeman was ahead with a 51-to-49% margin, with all early voting and some mail-in ballots counted, and a majority of the Election Day votes counted.
In addition to Korn, DeSantis suspended three other board members in August, citing a scathing grand-jury report that recommended their suspension for a ballooning $800 million bond issue for school-construction projects. He named four GOP appointees to replace the suspended board members. (School board members are normally elected, not appointed, as districts are funded through local property taxes.)
READ MORE: DeSantis suspends four Broward County School Board members, appoints replacements
Three of the seats held by the four appointees were up for election Tuesday. The three appointees were not on the ballot as their appointments came after the June deadline to qualify as candidates. The fourth appointee, board chair Torey Alston, was not on the ballot because his District 2 seat comes up for election in 2024. Alston replaced board Vice Chair Patricia Good, one of the suspended members.
Results
Zeman, who is the CEO of the Center for Human Capital Innovation, a firm that trains executives, ran on a platform of transparency and restoring faith in the embattled Broward School Board.
Korn, a former English teacher, campaigned on her longtime experience on the board. She was seeking her fourth four-year term and was the board chair twice.
Zeman and Korn ran in a runoff after the Aug. 23 primary, when each garnered about 30% of the vote in a four-person race. DeSantis suspended the board members three days after the primary election.
Race-by-race results: Click here for all the statewide and South Florida election results
During the campaign, Zeman warned voters that DeSantis could suspend Korn, a commercial real estate broker, again if she were to win in November. If the governor were to do that, Zeman said, Broward residents would wind up with a DeSantis-appointed board member for the next four years, the seat’s term of office.
Both Korn and Zeman are Democrats and have opposed many of DeSantis’ policies.
Korn contended the grand-jury report was politically motivated and argued DeSantis would not suspend her a second time based on DeSantis saying he would not suspend former Broward Sheriff Scott Israel again if he were elected in 2020. DeSantis suspended Israel in 2019 after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shootings in 2018. Israel lost the 2020 sheriff’s election so the issue became moot.
Four DeSantis appointees will be replaced
Three other races also involved replacements of DeSantis appointees.
The winner of the District 8 seat will replace Kevin Tynan, whom DeSantis named to the board after suspending Korn.
In August, when DeSantis suspended the four board members, he appointed Ryan Reiter for the District 1 seat and Manuel “Nandy” Serrano for the District 6 seat. Reiter replaced longtime board member Ann Murray, while Serrano replaced Board Chair Laurie Rich Levinson.
Neither Tynan, Reiter nor Serrano were on the ballot as their appointments came after the June ballot deadline.
READ MORE: DeSantis appoints four new Broward School Board members. Here’s what we know about them
DeSantis also appointed Daniel Foganholi in April for the District 5 seat after Rosalind Osgood stepped down to run for the state Senate, where she now represents District 33 in the Legislature.
Foganholi did not run for the School Board seat and instead ran for Seat 2 on the Coral Springs City Commission. He lost to Shawn Michael Cerra on Tuesday.
The four newly elected School Board members, coupled with the five current members, will determine the fate of Broward Superintendent Vickie Cartwright, whom the School Board put on notice to improve over the next 90 days. The 9-0 vote on Cartwright’s performance was only two weeks ago; only three of the nine board members — Debra Hixon, Sarah Leonardi and Nora Rupert — supported her solidly.
READ MORE: Broward School Board abstains from firing superintendent, gives her 90 days to improve
Here are the results for the other Broward School Board races:
District 1
Rodney “Rod” Velez, 51, was poised to defeat Marie Murray Martin, 58, in District 1, which includes the cities of Hallandale Beach, Hollywood and Dania Beach.
Velez, a real-estate property manager for Continental Fidelity Corp., was leading with 54% of the votes, with all early voting and some mail-in ballots counted, and all Election Day votes counted. He ran against Martin, a reading, film and journalism teacher at Apollo Middle School in Hollywood and the daughter of former board member Murray. She secured 46% of the vote.
Velez has two sons who attend Broward public schools; he ran on a campaign of more transparency, getting the school construction program on track and expanding education on school safety through student mental health programs.
District 5
With all the precincts votes counted, Jeff Holness was poised to defeat Ruth Carter-Lynch in the District 5 seat by a 54-46% margin. The votes by mail were still not completely counted as of Wednesday. The district includes northeast Plantation, northwest Fort Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes, Lauderhill and east Sunrise.
Holness, cousin of Dale Holness, the former mayor of Broward County, owns the Kumon Math and Reading Center of Coral Springs-South. Before that, he taught at Broward County Public Schools for nearly two decades. Carter-Lynch owns a consulting firm.
District 6
With all precincts reporting, Brenda Fam, an insurance lawyer, was poised to defeat Steven Julian, a former high school wrestling coach who’s pursuing a master’s degree in clinical mental health, for the District 6 seat. The votes by mail were still not completely counted as of Wednesday.
Fam, 61, won with about 52% of the vote while while Julian, 33, garnered 48%. Fam ran on a platform of prioritizing parental rights along with district transparency.
District 6 represents Weston, Davie, Cooper City and south Plantation.
