Zipperer resigns from Cd'A school board

COEUR d’ALENE — School Trustee Diane Zipperer has called it quits.

Zipperer submitted her resignation Monday to Sid Fredrickson, chair of Coeur d’Alene’s school board.

Zipperer’s exit, effective immediately, comes on the heels of Thursday’s appointment of Coeur d’Alene businessman Jim Purtee to fill the long-vacant Zone 1 seat.

“I am personally saddened by her resignation,” Fredrickson told The Press. “She’s had 8-plus years experience, and has a depth of knowledge in district procedures.”

Zipperer was appointed to the Zone 4 seat on the board in July 2004 and elected to a three-year term in 2005, and again in 2008.

Idaho’s election consolidation legislation, signed into law last year, extended Zipperer’s current term from three to five years.

In her resignation letter, Zipperer wrote that the two-year extension has become a hardship.

“It has been increasingly difficult for me to juggle time spent at work with the time required to be a school board trustee,” Zipperer told The Press.

Working with the school district during the past eight years has been “a joy,” Zipperer said.

“Being involved with the fantastic staff, incredible students and dedicated parents made my time as a trustee very special,” she said.

She said she felt the time was right to open the position to someone “equally as passionate about maintaining the Coeur d’Alene School District as a lighthouse district around the state.”

Since Thursday, the five-member school board had been fully seated for the first time in months.

In February, a district judge invalidated the board’s June 2011 appointment of Wanda Quinn who had been selected to fill the Zone 1 seat when Edie (Brooks) McLachlan resigned. That appointment was made when now sitting trustees Tom Hamilton and Terri Seymour were trustees-elect and had no voting power.

The court case that led to the nullification of Quinn’s appointment was initiated last summer by Hamilton and Seymour, who objected to the process, and filed a complaint against the board.

A judge agreed with Hamilton and Seymour.

Zipperer and Fredrickson were on the board when Quinn was appointed.

Idaho Code 33-504 states that if a school trustee seat remains vacant for more than 120 days, the appointment shall be made by the county commissioners rather than the remaining school trustees, so Purtee was appointed by the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners.

The initial steps of the appointment process, according to the same Idaho Code, require a school board to declare a vacancy within 30 days of a trustee’s resignation.

The remaining trustees will likely consider the Zone 4 seat vacancy when they meet Monday for their regular monthly meeting.

Trustee Tom Hamilton said he will push to appoint someone to fill the seat quickly.

“The board needs to put this behind us and get down to district business,” Hamilton said.

The appointee will complete the remainder of Zipperer’s five-year term through June 30, 2013. The position will be up for election in May 2013.