Cheney Public Schools Board, district 5
Election Results
| Candidate | Votes | Pct |
|---|---|---|
| Mitch Swenson | 4,006 | 60.88% |
| William (Bill) Johns | 2,574 | 39.12% |
* Race percentages are calculated with data from the Secretary of State's Office, which omits write-in votes from its calculations when there are too few to affect the outcome. The Spokane County Auditor's Office may have slightly different percentages than are reflected here because its figures include any write-in votes.
About the Race
The Candidates
Mitch Swenson
- Age:
- 64
Education: Graduated from Cheney High School in 1978. Graduated from Eastern Washington University in 1982 with a bachelor’s degree in finance.
Work experience: Commercial real estate broker with NAI Black for over 40 years.
Political experience: Elected Cheney Public Schools board member in 2015 and re-elected in 2019.
Family: Married to Kris Swenson. Has eight children. Five of his kids graduated from schools in the district.
William (Bill) Johns
- Age:
- 78
- City:
- Cheney, WA
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Washington in 1968 and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Gonzaga University in 1973.
Political experience: None.
Work experience: He has worked as a civil engineer for a number of different local governments, such as the city of Spokane, Spokane County and Adams County. He also worked on the Lower Granite Dam project while employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Served in the Vietnam War from 1969-70.
Family: Married to Mary Johns. They have two children who attended Cheney Public Schools.
His pitch: Johns said he frequently has attended Cheney Public Schools board meetings for the past four years and has experience managing large project budgets. He has advocated for and against multiple school bonds and levies since the 1970s. He is against the Cheney Public Schools capital levy for land acquisitions and technology upgrades that will be on the November ballot. He says the board should spend within its means and residents can’t afford higher taxes. He also said the raises given to teachers last year were too high. If elected, he said he would be a voice of dissent on the school board.
His words: The district is “taking too much money out of people’s pockets… They had some reserves, the reserves were used to pay the salary increase of teachers and the levy is used to pay for things that the reserves should pay for."
Complete Coverage
Cheney school board candidates Swenson, Johns disagree on tax proposals
Incumbent board member Mitch Swenson said the school district needs the two-year capital property levy of 50 cents per $1,000 on November’s ballot to acquire land for future schools and upgrade technology in schools. Challenger Bill Johns said he believes the capital levy is a result of excessive teacher pay increases causing the district to dip into reserve funding.