Two contests for seats on the Minneapolis school board took unexpected twists after Tracine Asberry was left as the lone candidate standing for the southwest Minneapolis seat, and the DFL endorsee for another seat indicated Monday he won't run.

Darrell Washington said he's been told as a city employee that the federal Hatch Act may prevent him from filing for the downtown-Isles are race. He said there's enough uncertainty that he won't file. He's a city development employee and both the city and his agency receive federal dollars. The Hatch Act was a civil service reform aimed at preventing pollical corruption through political activity by federal employees but has been applied to state and local employees as well.

With filing closing Tuesday at 5 p.m., Asberry remains the only filed candidate for the southwest seat after all three of her competitors for DFL endorsement two weeks ago said they won't run.

Meanwhile, Washington told the Star Tribune that he's "extremely disappointed" by the Hatch inpingement on what he regards as a nonpartisan race. The only filed candidate for that seat is Josh Reimnitz, a 26-year-old who taught in Atlanta city schools through Teach for America. Washington said some in Congress advocte loosening the restricitons for state and local employees but that won't happen untl after the filing deadline.

A four-way race has developed for the lone city-wide seat on this fall's ballot. Incumbent and DFL endorsee Carla Bates is being challenged by Doug Mann, Willis G. Trueblood and Janice Mae Harmon. Mann is a South Sider; Trueblood and Harmon list North Side addresses. DFL endorsee Kim Ellison is the lone filer for a North Side seat.

Asberry's status was a surprise because all of her competitors said they'd consider a primary election bid after the convention deadlocked over an endorsement. Alex Phung quit the race last week, followed by David Weingartner over the weekend, and Curtis Johnson confirmed Monday that he's out. Johnson said he'd decided tht the cost and time required for a race would pose too high a cost.for his family, and that he felt he could have more influence off the board than on it.

The turn of events could leave organized labor temporarily without a candidate in two races. Both the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and the Minneapolis Regional Lavor Federation endorsed Phung and Washington. MFT President Lynn Nordgren said before Johnson and Weingartner dropped out that the union's screening committee would meet after filings close to conisder another endorsement. Some observers were surprised when Asberry, a former member of MFT, failed to win its endorsement.