Ramona School Recall Dropped

Proponents of the recall of two Ramona Unified School District trustees said Wednesday that the effort has been dropped.

School board members Dr. Marcelo Rivera and Michael Mercurio had been notified of the recall effort against them Oct. 10 in the wake of a heated citizen protest about the district’s imposition of school-bus fares.

One of the recall leaders, Paul Jarrett, said the effort to unseat the two trustees was dropped “because we got what we wanted. We got their attention. . . .”

The school board voted in June to impose first-time bus fares on Ramona students, charging them $150 a year or $1 a day for the formerly free ride to and from school.

In September, the board cut the fare to $90 per student and voted to limit the charge to the first two children in a family.

And a separate lawsuit filed by irate parents has resulted in the district halting collections pending the outcome of a Nov. 12 hearing in El Cajon Superior Court.

Rivera was among three board members who voted for the fees in June. Mercurio joined the majority of the board in September in approving the lowered bus fees, explaining he had examined the budget and could find no place else where expenses could be cut to finance the cost of busing 2,000 of the district’s 6,300 students.

Jarrett explained that Mercurio and Rivera were singled out for the recall effort because both still have more than three years to serve on their terms. The other two board members who voted for the bus fee, board president Arvie Degenfelder and Tom Ferguson, are up for reelection next year, “and we will deal with them then,” Jarrett said.