School Board Candidate Facebook Photo… Issue?

A 2009 Facebook photo of a 2013 candidate for the South Washington County School Board has been brought up as a negative for the Woodbury man.

The photo of District 833 School Board candidate Raj Gandhi is of him in a Borat-style "mankini" outfit. He told Woodbury Patch it was taken as “sort of a dare.”

“Everybody laughed,” he said.

The Pioneer Press reported on Oct. 4 that the photo “whipped up a debate” on the Facebook page of Washington County Watchdog (290 likes), which posted the image on Woodbury Patch’s Facebook page on Sept. 29.

Gandhi said the item from Washington County Watchdog, which posts blogs on Patch sites, illustrates that it’s “easier to tear down than it is to build.”

He told Patch he doesn’t regret the photo, but Eric Langness—an administrator of the Washington County Watchdog page, state Senate candidate and former member of the Forest Lake School Board—told the newspaper:

"If we had chosen not to run it, we would be hiding information that the public should be aware of.”

Gandhi said wearing the outfit was a joke and he seemed surprised that it came up as an issue.

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