Petition Signatures Submitted for O.C. School Board Recall

Galvanized by a decision to redraw attendance lines in south Orange County, a group seeking to recall all seven trustees of the Capistrano Unified School District says it has gathered enough signatures to force the election.

Capo for Better Representation, comprising parents and other local residents, said it submitted 175,000 signatures Tuesday to the country registrar of voters. A minimum of 20,421 valid signatures per trustee are required for a recall election, said Brett Rowley, a spokesman for the registrar’s office.

Rowley said it could take as long as 30 days for the signatures to be verified.

In March, trustees for the 50,000-student district changed attendance boundaries to apportion more than 14,000 high school students among five campuses and the new San Juan Hills High School. The move will affect thousands of students entering high school when the campus opens in 2006.

The new boundaries will mix more students from the affluent beach communities with Latinos from poorer neighborhoods in San Juan Capistrano.

“The redistricting decision offended enough people that they began to talk,” said Thomas Russell, the group’s spokesman. “It was a catalyst that helped energize us, but it was not the main issue.”

Russell said much of his group’s anger was caused by the board’s unanimous decision to spend about $35 million on a new district administration building and $130 million on San Juan Hills, in eastern San Juan Capistrano. They say the high school is being built on unstable ground that’s also near a waste facility and under high-voltage power lines.

Kevin Murphy, the group’s chairman, said the board’s “reckless deficit spending has created a self-inflicted, multimillion-dollar budget crisis that puts our children at risk.”

The Capistrano Unified Management Assn., a group of principals and administrators opposing the recall, says that under the current board, test scores have soared and the district’s graduation rate is one of county’s highest. The management association also argues that 30 schools have been built and 22 others modernized in the last 15 years and that a recall election could cost taxpayers and the district up to $600,000.

Four trustees ran unopposed last year, and three others are up for reelection in November 2006.