This article was originally posted 4/22/2022 on SUBV Facebook page
As controversy grows around Blue Valley BOE Vice President Jim McMullen’s bigoted tweets and now-deactivated Twitter account, over 2400 people have signed a petition calling for McMullen’s censure and removal from the Board in the past 48 hours. https://johnsoncountypost.com/2022/04/22/blue-valley-jim-mcmullen-petition-145030/
So now seems like a good time to revisit some numbers:
Jim McMullen spent $45,000 OF HIS OWN MONEY and a total of almost $51,000 (donations included) on the Nov 2021 School Board election, based on the campaign finance reports he filed. Because School Board campaign donations are not capped in Kansas, McMullen was able to spend an unprecedented amount on his race. His opponent, Lindsay Weiss, raised and spent just under $12,000.
McMullen came out 51 votes ahead of Weiss. That was a 0.18% margin. (Meaning, he won by less than one-fifth of one percent.)
27,581 votes were cast in this district-wide election - about 32% of all registered BV voters voted. Sadly, there were 948 “undervotes” in this contest. Those are people who voted for some candidates on their ballot - but when it came to this particular race, they left the School Board section blank.
Again we ask: why would anyone want to spend over $45,000 of his own money to win an unpaid school board seat? What agenda might such a person have in mind?
We may now have our first glimpses into that.
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