Iowa City school board to elect new officers, discuss replacing Hoelscher

One week after President Sally Hoelscher resigned from the Iowa City Community School District's school board, her former fellow members will begin the process of replacing her.

Board members have scheduled a special meeting for 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, July 1. The agenda includes electing a new board president and determining how to go about filling Hoelscher's vacancy. There is more than one year left in her term, which is set to run through September 2015.

Kingsley Botchway II, deputy auditor of elections for Johnson County, confirmed that Iowa Code directs the board to appoint someone to the seat within 30 days of the resignation, which Hoelscher emailed on June 24, to complete the term. That person will remain in office through September 2015, which is the next scheduled school board election. If the board fails to appoint someone within the next month, Botchway said the board secretary would have to call a special election between 60 and 70 days after Hoelscher's announcement. That would place the election somewhere in late August or early September.

Botchway said the Iowa City district's September 2013 election cost $9,389 but the price tag for a special election for Hoelscher's seat could vary.

'Factors matter greatly, based on the number of candidates, whether we have satellites (voting locations) and the contentiousness of the election,” he said.

Chace Ramey, chief community affairs and human resources officer for the district, said he did not know whether the board would take action during the July 1 meeting.

'That's more the board's determination, not the administration's,” he said. 'I don't know how the discussion will unfold but those are the agenda items.”