Neil Parrot: Vote for Robin Wivell for Board of Education

By Ryan Miner 

Neil Parrott wants voters in Washington County to vote for Robin Wivell for Washington County Board of Education. In his latest newsletter where he announced his “endorsements” for the upcoming primary (who cares who Neil Parrott endorses), Parrott waded into the Board of Education race:

Board of Education – Draft Robin Wivell.  She is on the ballot, and even though she indicated she isn’t running at this time, if we help her in the primary I think she could change her mind.  I think she would do a great job serving on the Board.

Robin Wivell filed to run for the Board of Education on February 3 but then applied for the Board of County Commissioner vacancy when the Washington County Republican Central Committee began accepting applications three weeks later.

Thinking she was a shoo-in for the commissioner vacancy (the same seat her husband, Delegate Wivell, once held), Wivell pulled out from the Board of Education race, asking voters not to vote for her in the primary. However, Mrs. Wivell was passed over by the Republican Central Committee for the better-qualified and more level-headed Wayne Keefer.

So why is Neil Parrott attempting to resurrect Wivell’s candidacy when Wivell herself asked voters not to vote for her? I wonder if Robin Wivell and Neil Parrott are collaborating together to resurrect her candidacy? It makes sense. After all, both Parrot and Wivell are Tea Party, right-wing statist zealots; both despise public education; both unconscionably play politics with education. There’s the buzzer sounding off.

Of course Wivell and Parrott are working together to resurrect her candidacy. She cannot publicly throw her hat back into the ring. But if her friend Delegate Parrott begs her to get back into the race, and he asks the voters to pen her in, then she doesn’t look like the bad guy (or girl in this case). It wasn’t “her” idea to jump back into the Board of Education race; no, it was Neil Parrott’s idea. Right. I figured Robin Wivell would pull a stunt like this.

Essentially what Neil Parrott and Robin Wivell are trying to do is disrupt the election process. If Wivell advances into the general election, she’ll knock out a candidate (probably Joseph Chandler or Linda Murray) in the primary – even after she announced she was no longer mounting a campaign for the Board of Education.

Does Neil Parrott and Robin Wivell understand the consequences of this political stunt? Parrott and Wivell’s selfish political motivations are evident in this case.

Parrott knows so little about education policy and how education is funded at both the state and county level. When has Neil Parrott ever been on the side of public education in Washington County, unless it benefits him politically?

Parrot’s attempt to politicize Washington County’s Board of Education with his failed Tea Party ideology is beyond reproach. How is Parrott’s endorsement of Wivell fair to the other candidates who have been waging campaigns?

If I were a Washington County Board of Education candidate running this cycle, I’d tell Neil Parrott to mind his business and stick to doing what he does best: embarrassing Washington County around the state by attempting to impose his radical statist social agenda by government decree.

If you’re planning to vote in the Washington County Board of Education race, I urge you to consider the following four candidates:

• Donna Brightman
• Wayne Ridenour
• Al Martin
• Pieter Bickford