Bob Thomas, the father of Pottsville Area School District’s online watchdog Scott, announced Tuesday, he’s running for a seat on the school board in 2021.
There are 4 seats on the Pottsville school board up for grabs in the 2021 Municipal Election.
“I will be the voice of the unhappy taxpayer,” Bob Thomas said in a video announcement.
Bob Thomas Announces Bid for Pottsville School Board
Thomas’ announcement on Tuesday signaled he’s filed the paperwork to run for office. Interestingly, he’s named former Pottsville Area business manager Brian Manning as his campaign chairman.
Manning left his job at Pottsville for a similar spot in Shikellamy School District this summer. He’s not been shy since leaving his job at the district, either, once sharply criticizing the estranged superintendent Jeff Zwiebel.
The younger Thomas – a former board member, himself, who has since moved to Florida – created a Facebook page and website that gained quite a following and focused largely on the presumably outgoing superintendent. It sounds like the elder Thomas is picking up on a lot of the same themes that his son laid out online.
“Taxpayers have lost their voice at the table and I want to be that voice,” Bob Thomas says in a statement released Tuesday. “Board members should keep open lines of communication between their faculty, staff, and taxpayers. Under the present leadership, taxes have been raised each and every year, while the quality of education, due to teacher layoffs, has also decreased.”
The Thomases and Manning released a short video via Facebook:
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Shawn Tell
March 13, 2021 at 3:44 pm
Great just what we need, more relatives and nepotism on the school board. Isn’t there anyone else out there? 4 open spots could bring a lot of good change to the school board, will Scott show support for any other candidates or will this be about getting his dad in and nobody else? And for all Scott’s talk about transparency I have yet to see or hear him personally acknowledge Bob is his dad on any of his websites or videos. I have no beef with Scott and actually agree with him on a lot of things, but it’d be unfair not to hold him accountable just as much as he tries to keep the school board accountable.
Canary Commenter
March 13, 2021 at 11:57 pm
There’s a lack of candidates all over the ballot this year, all local races. The parties have done a very poor job getting more people interested in getting involved in local politics. Is that by design? Partly, at least. Over time people have become less interested because they haven’t been invited to the table in the past.
As far as the Thomases go, we’ll have to wait and see. Scott’s under no obligation to hold his father accountable. He’s kinda like George Stephapolous (sp?) at this point.