Bonita Trustee Will Face Recall Election Next Year

Robert Green, a member of the Bonita Unified School District’s Board of Trustees, will face a recall election early next year.

The county registrar-recorder’s office last week certified that 5,663 of the 7,079 petition signatures submitted last month were valid, said county spokeswoman Marcia Ventura. Recall proponents needed to submit at least 5,644 valid signatures--representing 20% of the district’s eligible voters--to force a special election. The district serves San Dimas and La Verne.

“We were pretty sure (the recall would qualify),” said parent Laurie Weiss, chairwoman of the recall committee. “When 7,000 people sign a petition, that really tells the community there’s a problem. Recalls don’t happen every day.”

The petition drive to recall Green was begun June 1 by parents and teachers who say that the trustee is unresponsive to parents and that his hard line in contract negotiations led to a one-day teachers’ strike last year.

Green, who was in Sacramento attending a meeting of Gov. George Deukmejian’s Commission on Quality in Education, was not available for comment.

The school district was notified of the signature validation on Friday and has until Oct. 31 to call a special election, Ventura said. If the board does not schedule the election by then, the registrar-recorder’s office will set the date.

The election must take place between 88 and 120 days after the date it is called, she said. If the Board of Trustees calls the election at its next meeting, Oct. 28, the election will be held between Jan. 25 and March 2.