Katie Bartel leads all Chilliwack school board candidates in unofficial results Saturday night

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CHILLIWACK – Several trustee candidates backed by the Chilliwack Teachers’ Association are leading in early unofficial results for the Chilliwack Board of Education.

With 18 of 19 polls reporting at 9:28 p.m., Katie Bartel is leading all candidates with 9,112 votes, followed by incumbent David Swankey in second place with 7,908 votes.

Incumbent trustee Margaret Reid is in third place with 7,522 votes.

Leah Kelley is in fourth place with 7,377 votes, followed by lawyer Michael Carter (7,355 votes), incumbent Willow Reichelt in sixth place (7,262 votes), and Cary Moore in seventh place with 7,108 votes.

The next closest trustee candidates are:

HAMILTON, Hugh	6,740
BEDNARSKI, Barbara	6,539
GARMON, Marina	6,232

The remaining trustee candidates include:

KRUGER, Christine	5,253
BOUWSEMA-CARDINAL, Brooke	5,220
RAMPTON, Hayden	4,206
HENDERSON, Paul	3,519
OLLINGER, Darren	3,510
VANGARDEREN, Brian	2,695
HESKETH, Sadie	2,157
MEGANATHAN, Sudakar	1,184

The seven candidates who were endorsed by the CTA include Katie Bartel, Brooke Bouwsema-Cardinal, Leah Kelley, Christine Kruger, and incumbents Margaret Reid, David Swankey and Willow Reichelt. Five of these seven candidates appear to have been elected.

Trustees for Change, a rival bloc of candidates who pushed for academic excellence in local schools, featured Barbara Bednarski, Michael Carter, Hugh Hamilton, Marina Garmon and Cary Moore. Two of these five candidates appear to have been elected.

There were 18 candidates running for seven school board positions, including (in alphabetical order) Katie Bartel, Barbara Bednarski, Brooke Bouwsema-Cardinal, Michael Carter, Marina Garmon, Hugh Hamilton, Paul Hamilton, Sadie Hesketh, Leah Kelley, Christine Kruger, Sudakar Meganthan, Cary Moore, Darren Ollinger, Hayden Rampton, Willow Reichelt, Margaret Reid, David Swankey and Brian Vangarderen.

Three incumbent trustees opted not to run again in this year’s municipal election, including Richard Procee, Carin Bondar and Teri Westerby.