The San Diego Unified School District Board of Education Trustees in Special Session will finally address the issue of “School Board Member Elections” this Tuesday, September 5, 2017 AT 6:30 in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Situation Room, located at 4100 Normal Street, San Diego, CA 92103…and COMMENTS by the public ARE ALLOWED!!!!

NOW is the time for San Diego Unified School District Stakeholder voices to be heard!!!

NOW is the time to have fair SDUSD Elections!!!

Item 4 on the agenda (with the wrong start time), is titled “School Board Member Elections” and described as:

Board members will discuss the topic of San Diego Unified School District School Board member elections.

The topic of San Diego Unified School Board Elections was fully explored in the San Diego Count Grand Jury Report titled: SAN DIEGO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS –TIME FOR A CHANGE

In the first sentence, the Grand Jury proclaimed:

The 2016/2017 San Diego County Grand Jury (Grand Jury), in response to several citizen complaints, investigated the election process of the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) School Board Trustees.

The Grand Jury, after extensive investigation, came up with the following recommendations:

The 2016/2017 San Diego County Grand Jury recommends that the San Diego City Council:

17-28: Consider placing a measure on a future ballot to allow the voters to decide whether to amend the San Diego City Charter to change the
election process for the San Diego Unified School District School
Board Elections, allowing only citizens in their sub-districts to elect
representation directly from their sub-district.

17-29: Consider placing a measure on a future ballot to allow the voters to decide whether to amend the San Diego City Charter to allow a San
Diego Unified School District board candidate who receives a
majority of the votes in their sub-district during the primary election
be considered elected.

17-30: Consider placing a measure on a future ballot to allow the voters to decide whether to amend the San Diego City Charter to limit the
number of terms San Diego Unified School District School Board
Trustees can serve.

To simplify:

17-28: Put “Elect by Sub District” and 17-29:”Primary Majority Winner”on  ballot.  

Logic: Trustee Whitehurst-Payne LOST to her opponent in the sub-district primary by a wide margin but was VOTED IN by lots of “out of sub-district” money in an expensive CITY WIDE election in November.  The City Council is elected by sub-district, for REAL representation of the community they serve, so should SDUSD Trustees.

17-30: Term Limits to prevent an individual from having a lifetime appointment preventing other less financially or politically connected candidates from everattaining the Trustee position in the sub-district.  

The concept of changing the SDUSD Election process went to the San Diego City Council as Agenda Item 331 we described on District Deeds in “San Diego City Council “Voters Rights” Democrats Vote Against San Diego Unified Community “Voters Rights””

At that time the City Councilmembers, on a slim 5-4 vote, denied the motion to have an evaluation of revising the School Board Election process by staff despite compelling testimony and evidence provided by the community that the jurisdiction over the SDUSD School Board Elections was clearly under their oversight authority for ALL San Diego taxpayers

In that City Council Meeting in March,2017 Trustee John Lee Evans said:

“I think as was said it’s certainly a community issue and interesting it came before the city council. This isn’t something that came before us in any significant way at the school board so if there is community interest in it we will certainly address it.” – Trustee John Lee Evans

So for the last FIVE MONTHS SDUSD Stakeholders like Francine Maxwell and Sally Smith have been telling the Board of Education in Board Meeting Public Comment that the Grand Jury Recommendations for revised SDUSD Board of Education process should be APPROVED by the Trustees.

And now the SDUSD will “address it” on Tuesday, September 5, 2017 at 6:30 pm in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Situation Room, located at 4100 Normal Street, San Diego, CA 92103

It is obvious that the current Board of Education Trustees will be OPPOSED to anything that can threaten their unlimited power with no oversight with the guarantee of unlimited campaign contributions controlling city-wide elections…but no matter what they decide to do, the issue is still alive!!!

The Councilmembers who voted “no” do not get off that easily.  They are required to respond to the Grand Jury report next month and will have it posted as a City Council Agenda Item for discussion and community testimony.

ALL of YOUR City Councilmembers need to hear from you to support the Grand Jury recommendations.

It is EXTREMELY important for SDUSD Stakeholders show up at both the SDUSD Special Meeting on Tuesday AND at the City Council meeting next month to speak in favor of the following 3 items recommended by the San Diego Grand Jury.

If you are not able to show up at the meeting, please send emails to the following SDUSD Board of Education Trustees and City Council Members.

Here are the SDUSD Trustees:

Richard Barrera – Board President – District D – rbarrera1@sandi.net

Kevin Beiser – Board Vice President – District B – kevinbeiser@sandi.net

John Lee Evans – Trustee – District A – johnleeevans@sandi.net

Mike McQuary – Trustee – District C – mmcquary@sandi.net

Sharon Whitehurst Payne – Trustee – District E – swhitehurst-payne@sandi.net

Here are the City Council Trustees by District with their email addresses and “No” votes with an X:

Once again, the issue of “School Board Member Elections” will be discussed in Special Open Session this Tuesday, September 5, 2017 AT 6:30 in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Situation Room, located at 4100 Normal Street, San Diego, CA 92103.

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