Leave it vacant

Two people are seeking the Fort Wayne Community Schools Board seat being vacated by Carol Coen, and last night, the board interviewed them at a public meeting:

Donald Schaab, an at-large board member from 1999-2002, and John Peirce, a driving force in the district's bid last summer to make $500 million in building renovations, interviewed Tuesday for the District 2 post. Coen, who is vacating her seat next week after 16 years, no longer lives in the district she serves.

During the nearly half-hour interviews, Schaab and Peirce were asked their stance on the building project, how they would close the achievement gap, why they were seeking the seat and more.

“It's pretty obvious 500 million (dollars) was not the right number,” said Peirce. “I think we need to do some things to gain the trust of the community.”

It's a pretty easy call for me -- one of the candidates led the drive for what would have been the largest publicly financed project in local history, and the other one didn't. All but one of the current board members voted to seek the bond issue, so it's not like we need that point of view on the board. But that's probably why they'll choose Peirce instead of Schaab. People like to be around like-minded people.

Actually why don't they decline to fill Coen's seat? It'll be on the November ballot, and filling it now would just be giving the chosen one the advantages of incumbency when he runs. Let them both go before the voters on an equal footing.