Brooks, Garrett take school district wins

Winners in both of Portales’ school board district elections took comfortable victories, and a double mill levy passed for Dora schools.

Alan Garrett won by 25 votes in District 3, while incumbent David Brooks held on in District 4 by a 33-vote margin.

Totals in District 3 were 68 votes for Garrett, 43 votes for Jerry Partin and 11 votes for Christie Carter.

Garrett said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the margin of victory.

“I’m very honored by the confidence the people have expressed in me,” said Garrett, who has been a teacher at Eastern New Mexico University for 13 years. “My plans are to learn to be a good and effective board member. That’s the first step.”

In District 4, Brooks claimed 103 votes to 70 for challenger Steve Adkins.

“Of course, I really appreciate it and I’m tickled to death that I can represent District 4 again,” Brooks said.

Brooks said that he wanted to do “basically the same thing” with his upcoming term as he is doing with his current term — to “improve our instruction and get our parents involved the facilities.”

Brooks referred to improvements to the Portales High School’s auditorium and cafeteria.

Dora’s mill levy was the only other vote where voters had more than one option. By a 54-32 margin, the voters approved a property tax of $2 per each $1,000 of net taxable value of property. The property tax will be for the property tax years of 2005 through 2010.

Attempts to reach Dora Superintendent Jim Reed and Dora High Principal Steve Barron were unsuccessful.

Dora had four positions open, but all were unopposed: Scott Watson in District 2 (67 votes), Kenneth Cox in District 3 (86), Jana Roberts in District 4 (84 votes) and Kenner Carrasco in District 5 (71).

Elida had three unopposed positions: Garland Creighton in District 3 (46 votes), Virginia Clemmons in District 4 (39) and Scott Burton in District 5 (44).

Floyd had two unopposed positions: Mark Dunlap in District 1 (22 votes) and Jeffrey Essary in District 2 (21).