Group Drops Effort to Rescind Appointment : Antelope Valley: A petition drive to elect the new member of a high school district board won’t make the November ballot.

A group of Antelope Valley residents said Wednesday that they are canceling a petition drive, begun only two days earlier, aimed at overturning a controversial high school board appointment and forcing a special election.

The turnabout in the Antelope Valley Union High School District came when the county registrar-recorder’s office told petition backers that even if they gathered the needed 1,400 signatures to mandate an election, they would be too late to make the November ballot.

The registrar’s office said a separate special election to fill the seat at a later date could have cost the school district at least $186,000, more than twice the cost of the November ballot. Petition backers said the added cost and later date put an end to their plan.

“The consensus at this point is to not proceed with the petition process,” said former high school district board president Bill Olenick, the leader of a group that was upset because the current school board filled a vacancy last week through appointment rather than an election.

The board of the nearly 10,000-student district could have chosen either route under state law. But after a secretive monthlong process that angered some in the community, the board picked a former school board member who has been living hundreds of miles away in San Luis Obispo County.

Critics said the community deserved the right to pick its own candidate. Bob McMullen, a former 12-year board member, was appointed to serve through November, 1991. McMullen recently registered to vote in Lancaster and said he is moving back to the area.