Dorchester Times: Election Special: Who's Running For School Board, Village Board

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Election Special: Who's Running For School Board, Village Board

The 2018 general election is approaching quickly. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6.

Here is the Dorchester Times' look at our community's local elections, as confirmed by the Saline County Election Clerk's office.

Dorchester Village Board

One thing is for certain: Change is coming to Dorchester's Village Board.

The village board will see three of its five seats up for election, as two current board members, LJ Barley and Todd Jensen, are not running for re-election. Incumbent Dean Pracheil, a longtime board member, is running again.

In addition to Pracheil, three others are vying for a seat on the town board. They are:

Thomas Cerny
Roger Miller
Sarah Wenz

Cerny has served on the village board before. Miller and Wenz, if elected, would be newcomers.

Meanwhile, there is no word yet on what will happen to the seat of village board chairman Matthew Hoffman, who last month plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of sexual assault. Some observers have speculated that Hoffman will resign once he is sentenced next month. Hoffman is due in court for sentencing on Nov. 20, 2018. (Hoffman would not be up for re-election until 2020. He received nearly 200 votes in 2016, a large amount of votes for a Dorchester official.) Hoffman was arrested by the Saline County Sheriff's Office in early 2018. Information surrounding the assaults is unknown, but because Hoffman has pleaded guilty to two separate charges, this blog assumes he will step down or be removed by a vote of the full board (or a citizen petition under state law).

Dorchester School Board

There will be no changes coming to the local school board.

The Dorchester Public School Board has three open seats. All three current board members whose seats are up -- Steve Vyhnalek, Carol Schnell and Matt Hansen -- are seeking re-election. No challengers filed to run for the school board this year.

Readers will be able to view this year's election results online, once they're made available, by clicking here.

6 comments:

AnonymousOctober 17, 2018 at 4:24 PM
very embarrassing
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AnonymousOctober 17, 2018 at 6:21 PM
Wouldn't it have been better to relinquish the position a year ago? Makes 4 bad press.
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AnonymousOctober 18, 2018 at 5:45 PM
Wow! Haven't read the Dorch Times for several months and look what I miss!!! Political scandal, intrigue and controversy. Wow!!!!!
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AnonymousOctober 19, 2018 at 1:51 PM
I've heard of more candidates running for the town board!
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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."