Web glitch nixes school-board run

A week ago, Mike Brumbaugh expected to win the election for the Newport-Mesa Unified school board unopposed.

Now, he’s on the outside looking in.

Brumbaugh believed that he was eligible to run for Trustee Area 2, but, when he attempted to file his paperwork with the Orange County Registrar of Voters, he found the district site had put the boundary line in the wrong place on the school district’s website.

As a result, the race for outgoing board member Linda Sneen’s spot on the board is wide open again.

“It’s a big-time disappointment,” said Brumbaugh, a parent of two Newport-Mesa students. “I felt I was getting momentum. I was meeting a lot of people to see where everybody stood on a lot of issues, getting a lot of information. I felt like I was gearing up to run and really felt I was going to win.”

Trustee Area 2, which extends across central Costa Mesa, has its northern boundary at Baker Street, just below the neighborhood where Brumbaugh lives. On the website, however, the map showed the line a few blocks higher at Gisler Street ? encompassing Killybrooke Elementary School, the site that Brumbaugh’s daughter attends.

Administrative assistant Laura Boss said she was surprised that the website didn’t match the correct version of the map she has posted on her office door.

“That map, unfortunately, was loaded [on the website] quite a while ago, and we didn’t realize there was an error where the line crossed over,” she said. “Normally, everyone, if they’re going to run, they call our office and check, and on good faith, he checked the website and thought for sure he was in Linda Sneen’s area.”

The map of the trustee areas, which Boss said was created by an outside company, has been removed from the website.

Sneen, whose term ends in November, said she thought Brumbaugh ? whom the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce recognized in May for his work with a homeowner’s association ? would make an excellent candidate. The deadline for filing with the registrar is Aug. 11, but the window can be extended for five days if no candidates have applied.

If no one else filed for the post, Sneen said, the school board would appoint a candidate.