With voters in the Auburn school district going to the polls on Tuesday, here are some pre-election thoughts:

There has been something about this year's Auburn school board election that seemed to make it different from others in the recent past. In what looks to be a truly low-key election for the board (it would be interesting to see if many can name all six candidates running), it seemed hard to figure out what was so different.

It wasn't until a recent candidate forum that it may have hit many who have watched recent raucous elections, like a 2-by-4 to the forehead. It came when Karol Soules, who is making her first run for the school board, indicated that she was wanted to “join these gentleman (referring to incumbents Charles Cator and David Lansford, who are seeking second and third terms respectively) on the board.”

This may have been the first time in years that a strong candidate running for the board has felt safe enough to talk positively about the local board of education. It has been all but tradition in the last decade or so to run “against” the incumbents, their records and the work of the board as a whole.

Sure there are critics - usually the nameless posters on newspaper Web sites - who toss insults but don't put themselves on the ballot as candidates. Yet it now seems, as exemplified from the former math teacher and active parent, especially at West Middle School, that, just maybe, the board is not doing an all together bad job.

In fact, a fourth candidate at the forum, Frederick Merritt Fletcher, head of the city's Human Rights Office, disagreed in degree on many of the issues brought up, not en mass.

Does this mean that we can expect years of peace in the future from those on and running for the board? Likely not. At this point, it sounds as if the general theme that candidates feel they can run on is that Auburn is heading in the right direction.

Yet, the real test of this will come on Tuesday when voters cast their ballots on a spending plan that has a 4.9 percent spending increase. District officials may easily be able to explain how unfunded mandates and labor agreements create this increase, but they are, rightfully, worried about a perception of a problem that they themselves have helped create.

Voters would normally expect to see both the budget and any borrowing referendums on the ballot the same day. The district has put the $15 million borrowing issue off until June. That proposal will include the controversial artificial turf. District officials, who rolled it into the June referendum, are worried that unsupportive voters on turf, not paying attention to Tuesday's budget, will think it includes either turf or associated costs. It doesn't.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com