Your 2 Choices for Lake Orion School Board

On Nov. 6, residents of the Lake Orion school district will have a choice between Bill Holt and Angela Nasso for one seat on the board of education.

The seat currently held by board President Mary Jo Burchart is up for grabs, as Burchart did not file for re-election. Due to changes in the scheduling of school-board elections, it’s the only seat expiring this year. None will be expiring next year so that in future, school-board seats will only expire in even-numbered years, a district spokesperson said.

Holt owns Tubular Products Company, an Auburn Hills-based automotive supplier, and C&H Commercial Properties. He points to his experience serving on boards, including 10 years as chairman of the Southeast Michigan United Way Allocations Committee and the current chairmanship of Spectrum Human Services Completion House.

He said he was trying to recruit someone to run for school board but when he couldn’t find anyone, “a couple of people … said it needed to be me,” he said. “I’m already well-connected and know what’s going on.”

Holt said he’s not a critic of the school board or superintendent. But he feels education is severely challenged right now.

“If we’re going to be the best, we need to set some high standards,” he said. “At the same time we’re going to make schools better, we have some very tough financial choices.”

Holt opposes open enrollment. He says he wants the district to run like a business. He said he attends school-board meetings and has spoken up about several issues, including outsourcing.

“I’m not opposed to unions, as long as they’re competitive,” he said. “In this case they chose not to be competitive.” He also spoke out against last year’s bond issue because the district wanted to bond for 20 years for what he calls “short-term expenses.”

“It’s immoral to do that and send that bill to your kids,” he said. “It’s not that I’m opposed to that spending. … But we have to do it out of current dollars.”

Nasso is a 14-year resident and has four children in the school district ranging from high school to second grade. She is pursuing a degree at Baker College.

 Recently I have had a change in jobs which has allowed me more time to do this,” she said. “We’ve been involved for a long time.”

Like her opponent, she said she’s not a critic of the district. “I think they’ve done amazing things and I’m very happy to be in this district,” she said. She’s running “just to keep what we have going. They had a lot of tough choices last year, like privatization. That situation saved the district money but it was a very tough choice.” She said the district shouldn’t pursue further privatization.

Like Holt, she opposes open enrollment. She says she’ll be non-political, “representing the community, not outside interests.”