The effort to recall four of the Morgan Hill School Board
trustees has hit a slight snag, with notification from the
Registrar’s Office that one of the signatures was invalid.
The effort to recall four of the Morgan Hill School Board trustees has hit a slight snag, with notification from the Registrar’s Office that one of the signatures was invalid.
One of the recall signers used a new address on the petition. The signer was a registered voter at another address.
“It’s negligible, we’re not concerned,” Community Alliance for Responsible Education (CARE) spokeswoman Victoria Battison said Monday.
Former Board President Tom Kinoshita, newly elected Board President George Panos and Trustees Del Foster and Jan Masuda were presented with recall notices just before the election of Panos as president and Trustee Shelle Thomas as vice president during the Dec. 15 board meeting. They will have to be re-served for the recall to move forward.
According to Shannon Buchey, election division coordinator for the Santa Clara County Registrar’s Office, CARE will have 120 days to gather signatures in support of its petition from 20 percent of the registered voters in the Morgan Hill School District, which stretches from South San Jose to San Martin.
In the district, Buchey said, there are approximately 28,000 registered voters, so CARE must gather at least 5,600 signatures. It is too late to complete the process in order to put the recall on the March 2 ballot, she said, so the recall would likely have to take place during a special election. Carol Gomez, who works in the accounting department of the Registrar’s Office, said a special election would cost approximately $5-$7 per signature on the recall petition or a minimum of $28,000.
The delay with the recall petition because of the invalid signature will only be, because of the holidays, approximately 10 to 14 days, Battison said.
The time remains ripe, she said, for the recall.
“This is the final straw for many parents in the district, the absurd drawing of the high school lines,” she said.
“The small learning communities grant is another issue. And everybody’s furious about the cost overruns and work being done at the high schools and other schools. People are frustrated and disappointed in the performance by the administration and the poor relationship between administration and the teachers.”
The board members who have been served recall notices cite the cost of a special election, which Foster said would have to be paid by the district, as a reason to wait until the November election, when all but Kinoshita would be up for re-election.
CARE missed the deadline for getting the recall on the March ballot.
A list of CARE members has not been released, but Battison said the group is made up of community members including parents with students in the district, community members without children in the district and business leaders.
CARE has a list of reasons for initiating the recall, according to Battison, including financial mismanagement, lack of oversight and support of Superintendent Carolyn McKennan, who CARE charges earns a salary unjustified by her results. Battison said CARE members feel the four trustees are not carrying out the wishes of the community that elected them.
The other three trustees, Thomas, Amina Khemici and Mike Hickey, were elected in November 2002. They are not targets of the recall.
