Uncertainty about appointing someone to 2-year term
School board trustees are facing a dilemma with a sense of déjà vu.
No one filed by the Aug. 6 deadline for the two years remaining on former trustee Tom Kinoshita’s term.
But it’s uncertain whether the existing six-member board will have to name the new trustee or if the district can wait until after new board members are elected Nov. 2.
Six candidates have filed for the three seats with four-year terms: Peter Mandel, Kathy Sullivan, Bob Griesinger, Michael Davenport, Julia Hover-Smoot and Harlan Warthen.
Kinoshita resigned in March, amid public unrest that led to a potential effort to recall him and three other board members.
When last Friday’s filing deadline for the two years remaining for Kinoshita’s seat came and went, current trustees were left with a dilemma:
With no candidates, how will they fill the seat?
“Officially, I don’t know what happens next, but my assumption is that the election is held, and that the new board then decides what they would do,” Trustee Jan Masuda said Wednesday.
In April, the board originally considered appointing someone to fill Kinoshita’s position. Jasmine Woodworth, who was the first runner-up in the 2002 election, was put forth as an obvious choice by Trustees Shellé Thomas and Amina Khemici, but the other four trustees did not support her.
Board President George Panos and Trustee Del Foster were sent a letter in error by an employee in the Registrar of Voters office which inferred Woodworth may have been involved in the recall effort.
Woodworth said later she helped with the effort but was never a formal proponent.
Three regular four-term seats are up for grabs in November; incumbents Masuda, Foster and Panos have said for months they would not seek re-election.
The filing deadline for those seats was Wednesday.
Trustee Mike Hickey, elected to his first term in November 2002, said Thursday he, too, was unsure about the official procedure in this case.
“I’m sure this is something we’ll have to discuss at our next meeting,” he said. “I’d like to hear what everyone has to say, but my inclination right now is to appoint before the election.”
The board’s next regular meeting is Aug. 23 at 7 p.m. at the District Office, 15600 Concord Circle.
One concern is the deadline to replace Kinoshita. If it expires after the election but before the new board is officially seated at the first regular board meeting in December, the board could appoint the fourth place candidate.
Among the last to file for school board was Morgan Hill Mike Davenport, a manager at Cisco Systems.
Davenport has two daughters, Bryanna, 5, who will start kindergarten at Jackson Elementary School and one-month-old Danielle. Davenport is taking advantage of the Family Leave Act, which allows parents to take time off from work to be with new-born children with pay. He will be taking 12 weeks off to be with her.
Davenport described the district with one word: Need. He said there was a need to bring the district together and work as a team to solve the problems it faces.
“The only way we can be successful is if we rely on the strength of one another,” Davenport said.
Davenport said he has been active in the community, especially though Leadership Morgan Hill. He said he wanted to get involved in civic matters and thought the school board was a good way to do that.
Hover-Smoot could not be reached Thursday.
There were 10 candidates for four School Board seats during the November 2002 election in which Kinoshita, Hickey, Thomas and Khemici were elected.
Foster said Wednesday he doesn’t have an opinion right now about appointing either before or after the upcoming election.
“I have no preference one way or another,” he said. “My only concern is that the time limit after Tom’s resignation expires, I think, between the time of the election and when the new board will be seated in December … It’s possible after the election we could appoint the fourth votegetter.”
Members of the public have raised the issue of reducing the board to a five-member board. Foster said Wednesday that he didn’t know if that option could be considered.
“As long as I’ve known it, it’s (the Morgan Hill Board of Education) always been a seven member board,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s anything other than an historical carryover. I’m not aware that it must be a seven member board. I do know there are other unified districts that have five member boards.”
In the Gavilan College race for one seat in each of the college’s three districts – Gilroy, San Benito County and Morgan Hill – only the Gilroy seat will be contested.
Incumbent Mark Dover, seeking his second term, will be challenged by Manly Willis, who has said he wants more oversight of the college’s spending.
No Gavilan candidates paid the $3,030 to file a 200-word statement in the San Benito and Santa Clara counties’ ballots.
