Ritter, a Republican, defeated his Democrat rival David Larry Plugh 1,680 votes to 1,077. Ritter was one of the founding members of the Coatesville Taxpayer's Alliance (CTA) that came into prominence in 2004 when the then school board proposed a whopping 24 percent hike in school taxes. That tax increase was eventually beaten down to 10 percent because of the CTA and Ritter. The following year several CTA members were elected to the school board, including Dr. John Zaleski.

Ritter, while president of the CTA, was often viewed as the financial alter ego of Zaleski, whose short term on the school board resulted in two, successive tax rollbacks and the build up of a $25 million surplus.

In other Region II races, J. Neil Campbell, a software engineer, was the high vote getter with 2,047 votes. Campbell ran on both the Republican and Democrat tickets. Ritter, Campbell and Plugh were running for two, four-year terms on the nine-member school board. Incumbent board President Donna Urban, a Democrat, won an uncontested two-year term.

Ritter said the challenge for the school board now is the controlled spend down of the fiscal surplus that won't require a large tax increase at a later date. The last three budgets have dipped into the surplus to allow two tax reductions and a zero tax increase this school year.

"Spending down the surplus is essentially a deficit budget," said Ritter.

"Incumbent school board members Paul Johnson and Donna Brownfield were reelected to the school board from Region I; they were both unopposed. In Region III, Donald Holt won reelection; he was unopposed.

Region I includes Coatesville and Valley Township; Region II, Caln and West Brandywine Townships; and Region III, the municipalities South Coatesville, Modena, and East Fallowfield, Sadsbury, and West Caln townships.