Voters should elect school board seat

At their April 25 meeting, Laguna Beach Unified School Board members announced they intend to appoint someone to fill the board vacancy recently caused by Kathryn Turner’s death. The board is not legally obligated to appoint anyone to fill this vacancy but instead may, under Education Code Section 5091, allow the vacancy to remain until the voters elect a new member in the November election.

Because this is an election year in which three of the five board positions are at stake, and because of growing voter dissatisfaction with the district’s administration, most recently evidenced by the upheaval over the resignation of high school Principal Nancy Blade, the board should not appoint anyone to fill the vacancy and should instead leave that decision for the voters to make in November.

Last week, board member Betsy Jenkins justified the board’s desire to appoint someone by stating in a newspaper article that, without a fifth member, split decisions would be “awkward.”

This justification is specious. According to the meeting minutes published on the district’s Website, during the 81 board meetings that occurred since Jenkins became a board member in 2002, she and the other board members voted more than 400 times on substantive matters in public session. All of those votes were unanimous, except for one vote that was four to one (on March 23, 2004).

Given that history, and because only eight board meetings are scheduled within the period between the board’s appointment deadline and the installation of the new board following November’s election, there is no likelihood any split decisions will occur during that period.

The real reason the board members want to appoint someone surely is to give their hand-picked choice the luxury of running as an incumbent in November, which will virtually assure her or his election to a full four-year term. Similarly, the only reason anyone would apply for this appointment is to obtain that overwhelming advantage.

Fortunately, Section 5091 gives the voters the final say on any board appointment. If within 30 days of the board’s appointment a confidential petition signed by 331 voters is delivered to the Orange County Superintendent of Schools, then the appointment automatically terminates and the vacancy will be filled by the voters in November.

The school board should not make this appointment and no one desiring to serve on our school board should seek it. If an appointment occurs, then the voters should terminate it.