Local News in Brief : School Election Petitions
Inglewood activists seeking to force a special election for a seat on the Inglewood Unified School District Board of Education on Wednesday submitted petitions to the county Office of Education.
Concerned Citizens of Inglewood, the United Democratic Club and parents’ groups collected the signatures as a result of the furor over the process used to appoint former city Police Chief Joseph Rouzan to the board Nov. 10.
Concerned Citizens spokesman Terry Coleman estimated that the group gathered 1,300 signatures, almost twice the required 678. The county registrar/recorder will have 30 days to validate those signatures and will order an election if enough are valid, a county spokeswoman said.
In filling the vacancy caused by the death of board member Ernest Shaw, the board apparently violated the state’s open-meetings law and withheld applications for the seat in defiance of public record laws.
After appointing Rouzan, the board eventually made public the applications filed by 19 persons who had sought the seat. It acted on advice from the county counsel’s office.
Rouzan has said he plans to run for the seat if there is an election.
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