Wellington man elected to PSD board

November 11, 2009

By JoAn Bjarko

The Wellington

Poudre School District will have a Wellington (Colorado) resident on its board of education as a result of the Nov. 3 election.

Patrick Albright, 32, of Wellington won a three-way race for the District E seat with 44.6 percent of the vote.

Albright, who has lived in Wellington for seven years, said one goal is to make sure other board members understand that the school district “is more than just Fort Collins” and that smaller communities need to be served appropriately.

Openness when making decisions and engaging the public are also important goals, Albright said.

“The perception is that decisions are being made that haven’t been fully vetted in public,” he said, citing the idea of turning a Fort Collins elementary school into a high school for 400 students.

The school district will also be facing budget challenges and decisions on wise use of facilities, he noted. It currently appears that state funding for PSD will drop $7 million over the next two years, Albright said, and the state could rescind some of the money allocated to schools this year.

Albright is an engineer with Advanced Energy Industries of Fort Collins. He and his wife, Bridgette, have a 2-year-old daughter, Claira. The thought of her future education made him want to find a place to be involved, he said.

Running in the same District E race were Lynn Borngrebe, who took 36.6 percent of the votes, and Susan Lorimor, who tallied 18.7 percent of the 15,558 votes cast.

The other two races for positions on the board had one candidate each. James Ross of north Fort Collins will serve District D. He received 12,194 votes. Jim Hayes of Fort Collins will serve District C for another four-year term. He received 11,780 votes.

The recently elected candidates will take their oaths of office at the Nov. 17 board meeting, which starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Johannsen Services Center conference room, located at 2407 LaPorte Ave. in Fort Collins.