Event: A community forum allowing citizens to ask questions of the three remaining applicants for the District 2 seat on the Olympia School Board.

Location: Board Room of the Knox Administrative Center, 1113 Legion Way SE, Olympia.

Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m.

For more information, click here.

This is the second in a four-part series, introducing you to the four applicants for the District 2 seat on the Olympia School Board, which was vacated when Rich Nafziger resigned. The series goes in reverse alphabetical order, and will wrap up before March 12, when the candidates will face questions in a "community forum environment."

I've made care to accurately quote or represent the candidates, and any potential errors are my own.

Paul Parker lives down the street from Jill Johnson, one of my colleagues at Capital. "Paul's hard-working, thoughtful, and smart," she told me over lunch on Tuesday. "Thorough, too." The only applicant with a law degree, Parker has worked in higher education and state government, and currently serves as a senior policy analyst for Washington State's Transportation Commission.

More to the point, Parker is an active PTA and Site Council member, and chaired the district's Budget Advisory Group in 2007. Last June, after examining the district's finances, the group advocated some cuts that, to paraphrase Parker, "washed out" with paired with recommended expenses.