Barbara Baier will take a seat on the Lincoln Board of Education, representing District 3 as its newest member. On Tuesday, Baier defeated Tony Merritt, 32, a project manager for Digital IMS.

Baier, 47, a grant writer and administrator for the city Finance Department, led the three-person primary in April with 55 percent of the vote. She had about 56 percent in Tuesday's general election, according to unofficial final results.

Baier said her experience working on education issues and with the minority community and other communities in Lincoln made the difference in her campaign.

Criticism of her for accepting donations from a national gay and lesbian political action committee and then some negative leafleting against her toward the end of the campaign did not sway voters.

"I've always been confident Lincoln would judge me on my platform and my qualifications," she said. "I've always found Lincoln to be a welcoming community."

Baier had the support of teachers with an endorsement from the Lincoln Education Association's political action committee.

Her first order of business on the board, she said, will be to work as a liaison for all of Lincoln, particularly the minority community and new Americans.

Merritt said Tuesday night it was too early to say if he would try again, but he has the interest and energy to run again.

"What I learned was that you need to start early and frankly you need to have, at least in this case, a war chest," he said. "You need to put your name out there relentlessly."

Merritt said he spent $7,000 to $8,000 on the race, about a fourth of what his opponent spent.

Baier had about $3,000 in combined donations from the state and local education associations and a substantial in-kind contribution —$9,357 — from the state Democratic Party that came from the Victory Fund, a national political action committee that supports openly gay candidates for local and national office.

Having the endorsement of the LEA political action committee made a difference in the race, Merritt said.

Chelli Olsen, LEA-PAC co-chair, said she believes the endorsement makes a difference because voters trust teachers to choose their candidates wisely.

The teachers' union PAC has a thorough process of soliciting information from candidates, interviewing them and then selecting who it will endorse.

"I think that people think that teachers know what is best where Lincoln Public Schools is concerned," Olsen said. "The truth is that nobody knows more about the school system than teachers who work there every day."

Besides the financial contribution to Baier's campaign, LEA got people to distribute leaflets for her and put up yard signs.

"We hope that she will be a good, thoughtful board member that will take into consideration what is best for Lincoln Public Schools and its students and teachers," Olsen said.

Both Baier and Merritt are Democrats, although the school board is a nonpartisan office.

District 3 covers downtown and nearby areas south of O Street, as well as a wide area of northwest Lincoln.

Baier will replace Jim Garver on the board. Garver, who first was elected in 1985, has represented District 3  for five terms.

In the only other contested race in District 5, incumbent Keith Prettyman got 71 percent of the vote to defeat Norman Dority.

In District 1 and District 7, incumbents Kathy Danek and Don Mayhew ran unopposed. 

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.

Lincoln Board of Education

DISTRICT 3

Unofficial final results

Barbara Baier (D)  1,587

Tony Merritt (D)  1,235

DISTRICT 5

Norman Dority (R)   2,180

Keith Prettyman (R) *   5,302

DISTRICT 1

Kathy Danek* (D)   4,364

DISTRICT 7

Don Mayhew * (D)   2,720

*denotes incumbent