Group Fights Simi School Recall Drive : Petitions: Backers of three trustees tell of smear campaign. Foes are upset over sex education and campus conversion issues.

Supporters of three Simi Valley school board members targeted for recall have formed a group to oppose the effort, calling it frivolous and an expense the school district cannot afford.

Simi People Against Recall, or SPAR, so far has about 20 members who plan to distribute leaflets at locations where the recall group is meeting or gathering signatures on petitions, spokeswoman Linda Jordan-O’Connor said.

The opposition is charging that the group behind the attempted recall of board members Debbie Sandland, Diane Collins and Carla Kurachi is motivated by politics, not a desire to improve education, Jordan-O’Connor said.

“We feel it’s a smear campaign,” Jordan-O’Connor said. “The (recall) group wants to put their own conservative, fundamentalist, right-wing members on the board.”

Don Otto, spokesman for the recall group known as Parents Aligned for Childrens Education, said the camp’s 200 to 300 recall supporters come from across the political spectrum.

“These are all parents who have kids in the public schools,” said Otto, who ran unsuccessfully for a school board seat in 1990. “What other interests or affiliations they may have was not a criteria for being involved.”

The coalition of parents backing the recall primarily is upset about a failed idea to convert junior high schools to middle schools and about a proposal to add information about birth control to the sex education curriculum, Otto said.

The three targeted board members have formed a 3-2 majority on those two issues, which have ignited debate at board meetings in the last year.

If the recall group gets the necessary signatures, the school district must pay for a special election. That could cost $16,500 to $55,000, depending on whether the recall is the only measure on the ballot, according to the Ventura County elections division.

In addition, the county charges 50 cents for each petition signature that election officials are required to examine. To qualify for the ballot, each petition must have 8,232 signatures, 15% of registered voters in the school district.

The new opposition group believes voters already have spoken in the case of two board members and another election is imminent for one of the recall targets, Jordan-O’Connor said.

Sandland and Collins were elected to four-year terms one year ago and Kurachi’s seat is up for grabs next November.

“It’s a big waste,” Jordan-O’Connor said.

Otto said PACE has followed the rules for seeking the recall of an elected official. The timing of regularly scheduled elections is irrelevant, he said.

“This all started because these board members were not listening to parents, and we’re going to stay focused on that issue regardless of who got elected when or whatever,” Otto said.

The group hopes to begin circulating petitions within the next week, Otto said. Meanwhile, recall opponents are hoping to draw more members to their side.

“We feel the three board members are great leaders,” Jordan-O’Connor said. “They see a problem and they take it head-on. They don’t close their eyes and hope it goes away.”