With newly elected trustees David Gerard, Gino Borgioli and Donna Foster-Ruebusch sworn in prior to the Dec. 9 board of education meeting, Morgan Hill Unified School District’s new seven-member caucus went right to work by electing a new president and vice president.
“This is a wild and wonderful new experience,” said Foster-Ruebusch, a retired teacher who spent her career at Live Oak High School. “I have sat on the other side of this table for a long time, and I look very much forward to the next four years working with my colleagues.”
Trustee Bob Benevento, who has been a member of the board since being appointed in 2011, was elected president by a 4-3 roll call vote to succeed former president Don Moody, whose 10 years of service ended with him not seeking re-election in November.
A second 4-3 roll call vote followed with Trustee Ron Woolf, a retired MHUSD educator who was elected to the board in 2010 and re-elected to a second four-year term last month, winning the vice president seat. He replaces 12-year board veteran Shelle Thomas who also decided not to run in the general election.
In both votes, for which trustees filled out ballots that were then read aloud to the audience inside the district office boardroom, Benevento, Foster-Ruebusch, Woolf and Trustee Amy Porter-Jensen—chiming in via a teleconference call from an offsite location—voted in the majority. Meanwhile, Trustee Rick Badillo, who was up for both the president and vice president spots, was given support from Gerard and Borgioli.
“One of the reasons I ran for the board was to try to bring more community involvement into this board, and that’s one of the reasons I seconded the nomination for Rick Badillo,” said Gerard, praising Badillo’s completion of the California School Board Association’s Masters in Governance.
“He’s shown to me that he’s an agile learner and I think that he would be someone who would continue to learn,” Gerard added.
After Woolf’s motion to nominate Benevento was seconded by Foster-Ruebusch, Gerard did the same for Borgioli’s nomination of Badillo—who has sat on the board since 2012.
“I’d like to thank the parents of Morgan Hill for the vote of confidence in me and the other candidates during the election,” Borgioli said. “I look forward to really working with everyone here at the district, listening to our parents and really bringing a lot more voices to the board.”
Council incumbents sworn in
Morgan Hill City Council members Rich Constantine and Gordon Siebert, along with Mayor Steve Tate, were also sworn this month. The three incumbents, beginning their next terms, took the oaths of office at the council’s Dec. 3 meeting.
City Clerk Irma Torrez administered the oaths of office.
Constantine and Siebert are both beginning their second four-year terms, while the mayor is in his fifth two-year term. All three candidates won re-election in the Nov. 4 general election.
“I’m overjoyed the electorate was willing to return all of us to office so we can continue to make progress for the citizens of Morgan Hill,” Tate said after being sworn in. “And I want to thank my wife, Jennifer, for allowing me to do this.”
