HUNTINGTON BEACH : Campaign Launched to Recall 19 Trustees

A group of residents still angry at four school district boards over a now-rescinded property fee formally notified 10 trustees Tuesday of an effort to recall them.

Citizens for Accountability in Education members served intent-to-recall notifications to every member of the Huntington Beach City and Ocean View school boards at their meetings Tuesday night, officially launching a recall campaign that the group says will target 19 trustees.

Each of the trustees from the two five-member boards now has seven days in which to file written responses to the recall attempt with the county registrar of voters office.

The group leading the recall intends to file similar notices within a week to all but one member of the Huntington Beach Union High and Westminster school boards. Westminster Trustee Margie Rice, who opposed the property fee from the beginning of the controversy, is the only member among the four school district boards that the group is not seeking to oust from office, co-director Bryan Bridges said.

When presented with the recall notices, none of the board members commented on the action.

A joint authority representing the four districts on July 25 approved a $50-per-year property fee to raise money to help maintain school facilities and grounds. As public pressure to rescind the fee continued and a potential lawsuit loomed, the assessment was reversed on Aug. 6.

But members of Citizens for Accountability in Education, which formed after the authority originally approved the fee, say they are still upset with trustees for not heeding their pleas to reject the assessment in the first place.

To force a recall election, the group must obtain about 8,800 valid signatures in the Ocean View School District and 8,200 in the Huntington Beach City School District--the equivalent of 20% of the registered voters in those districts. After the registrar’s office approves the group’s final petitions, it will have 120 days in which to obtain the signatures.