As Laurie Actman Withdraws, Plot Thickens For LM Dem. School Board Primary

Laurie Actman, the first incumbent in recent memory who failed to win the endorsement of the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN), has officially dropped out of the race for School Board.

There are four open positions in this year’s election for the Lower Merion School Board. On March 2, DCLMN endorsed three candidates (Kerry Sautner, Anna Shurak and Melanie Schafmeister). Actman and Kim Garrison made it to the second round of voting, but neither won the 60% required for an endorsement.

In addition to Garrison, Mary Brown is the only other unendorsed Democrat who filed to run for School Board. Three Republicans have also cross-filed and will appear on both the Republican and Democratic ballots in the primary. They are Travis Kreiser, Brendan Sammon and Christina Fink. Brown has also filed to run in the Republican Primary.

Some members of DCLMN consider Brown to be damaged goods.

In 2017 she ran against a full slate of endorsed candidates in the Democratic School Board primary, something that the Committee very much frowns upon. She did the same thing again in 2019. To make matters worse, in 2017 and in 2019, Brown cross-filed and won in the Republican primaries. And she ran in both of those years in the general election, against the Democratic Ticket. 

This year’s debate among Committee members about whether or not to endorse candidates was even more protracted than it has been at previous endorsement meetings.

And as usual, a key argument made in support of endorsements was that they are necessary in order to prevent the very situation that the Committee faces now – an Open Primary featuring multiple candidates, some of whom,  most Committee members would very much prefer not to see as one of the party’s standard bearers in the general election.