Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1998 | 1:56 a.m.
Susan Brager and Jack Levin advanced Tuesday in the School Board race for the District F seat, vowing to bring more educational and fiscal accountability to the board if elected in November.
Brager and Levin defeated Richard Ziser, 45, a conservative former business owner who spent about $21,000 -- most of it his own money -- on the campaign.
Ziser said he was unwittingly caught up by a battle between printing and machinist unions. Ziser allowed a machinist symbol on some of his campaign literature. Local printing union officials rapped him for it in a Sunday newspaper ad.
"Who knows how much that could have cost us," Ziser said. "Looks like I got stuck in that. That's the way it works, I guess. I should have stayed away from a union printer."
Brager, 51, a Las Vegas real estate agent, now serves as School Board president. She watched campaign coverage on television Tuesday night at home with her children and six of nine grandchildren.
Brager said she would focus on several issues before the general election: more community college partnerships, opening another vocational education high school in the western valley, and developing a uniform year-round calendar for elementary and middle schools. Brager also supports an alternative education elementary school for students with discipline problems.
"A lot of these students are really creative," Brager said. "We need to channel their high energy in a way that is less disruptive."
Brager, who has spent $1,143 campaigning, plans to "walk 100 houses a day" in the next two months.
Levin, 35, a travel agent and gay rights activist, wants to raise "$50,000 in the next 45 days." Levin said about 35 volunteers already have joined him in knocking on 20,000 doors.
"It's been a thrilling week for me," Levin said Tuesday night at an election party at Keys, a Sahara Avenue restaurant and tavern. "It's been a true grass-roots campaign. We talked about the issues."
Levin plans to hammer the issue of more bringing accountability to the district's finances.
Levin said he also plans to stress making education for "average" students as equitable as education provided disabled and gifted students. He also supports constructing second stories on schools as an alternative to building more schools.
"No one talks about it, but it's a lot cheaper than building new schools," Levin said.
Voters on Nov. 3 will elect School Board members for two other seats on the seven-member board.
In District G, substitute teacher Sheila Moulton, 48, faces Patrick Boylan, 46, a technical writer for Gaming Systems International and a part-time community college computer teacher.
In District D, current board member Larry Mason, a community college administrator, is running unopposed.
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