(Updated at 4:45 p.m.) By the time this story is published, candidates will have just an hour-and-a-half to file the necessary paperwork to run in the Jan. 9 special election to fill the vacant seat on the Alexandria School Board.
The deadline is 5 p.m. to file the following with the city’s Office of Voter Registration & Elections:
- Declaration of Candidacy
- Candidate Petitions (with 125 signatures of qualified voters from School Board, District A)
- Certificate of Candidate Qualification
- Statement of Economic Interests
- Statement of Organization
So far, Gina Baum and Tim Beaty have filed paperwork to run for the open seat, according to Angie Turner, the city’s registrar of voters.
Baum is a managing broker with Keller Williams Metro Center, according to her LinkedIn page. As part of her filing, she submitted 150 signatures, a campaign email address and a campaign website, the latter of which hasn’t yet been set up.
Last month, District A School Board Member Willie Bailey abruptly resigned, prompting the Alexandria Circuit Court to order a special election for Jan. 9. The winner of the election will serve out the remaining 11 months of Bailey’s term before the next School Board is sworn into office in January 2025, following the November 2024 general election.
There are at least two other interested candidates collecting signatures — former School Board Member Bill Campbell and retired labor leader Tim Beaty.
Campbell was elected to the School Board in 2012 and reelected in 2015, but lost his reelection bid in 2018. He also lost a 2021 City Council bid, and while he said that he has collected enough signatures to run, Campbell told ALXnow that he’s weighing family obligations before taking the plunge and running for office again.
“I have a few hours left to make that decision,” Campbell said.
Beaty, the former global strategies director for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, addressed the Alexandria Democratic Committee at its monthly meeting on Monday night. He said that he’s been a city resident for nine years, and has been a precinct captain at Cora Kelly School, and that his main goal would be to help ACPS in its collective bargaining efforts with staff.
“I think the process of collective bargaining should be able to help us with retention of too many teachers that are leaving the system because the workers will be represented in the collective bargaining negotiation,” Beaty said, “And to be able to attract more folks with hopefully through collective bargaining process better wages, benefits and working conditions.”