School board candidate juggles race and Facebook

Dan DeBartolo is one of four candidates running for the Juneau School Board. (Courtesy of Dan DeBartolo)
Dan DeBartolo is one of four candidates running for the Juneau School Board. (Courtesy Dan DeBartolo)

A Juneau school board candidate is figuring out that life in the public eye will require making some unforeseen changes to his life on social media.

Dan DeBartolo is the creator and a moderator of the Facebook page Juneau Community Collective. It’s a public group with more than 5,500 members. Since DeBartolo started it a couple of years ago, the page has been a popular place to discuss community issues. But lately, he’s seeing more and more people talking politics.

“Now that I’m involved in an actual local candidacy for a school board seat, I felt like I was put in an odd position, because I’ve had to remove some posts because they directly advocated for a local house seat or a municipal seat, and they weren’t naturally part of just a conversation on the page,” DeBartolo said.

He said he realized if he removes political posts that break the page’s rules, there’s a danger it’ll look like he’s acting in his own interests as a political candidate and not as a neutral moderator.

“I didn’t see it coming,” DeBartolo said.

He said his decision to run for school board largely hinged on the amount of time he’d spend away from his family.

“I certainly didn’t think about the span of it touching my online life or even who I was going to bump into in the street saying, ‘Hey thanks for running for school board,’” DeBartolo said. “So, it has opened my eyes to a whole new world.”

DeBartolo asked the collective how he should handle the conflict of interest. So far, he’s received 66 public responses as well as some private messages. He said the majority were against posts about national elections because there are plenty of other forums to discuss them. Some told him to stop moderating political posts and some said he should stop moderating the page altogether.

Dan DeBartolo asked the Juneau Community Collective about his desire to continue moderating the Facebook page while running for school board. (Courtesy of Dan DeBartolo)
Dan DeBartolo asked the Juneau Community Collective about his desire to continue moderating the Facebook page while running for school board. (Courtesy of Juneau Community Collective)

DeBartolo said he’s going to keep moderating but he’s giving oversight of the political posts to other page administrators.

“There are other issues that are going on that have nothing to do with the school board and have nothing to do with the education system that I believe I contribute to as, not only a moderator but as a citizen,” DeBartolo said.

He said he wants to make sure there’s a fair discussion of those issues and he doesn’t want to overburden the other administrators with his entire share of the work.

DeBartolo added, “To a certain degree it’s my baby in a way, and I don’t want to let it go and not be a part of it anymore altogether when I believe there’s middle ground.”

DeBartolo has created a campaign Facebook page to further separate his political activity from the Juneau Community Collective.

He said his wife recently pointed out that since he’s set his sights on public office, it’s possible there’ll be many more aspects of his life he’ll have to reexamine through the lens of a political candidate.

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