Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : 8 Apply for Seat on Hart Union School Board

Eight candidates have applied for a vacancy on the high school district board here, including two police officers, a water company president, a computer technician, an attorney, a teacher, a newspaper columnist and a telecommunications manager.

Two candidates are former board members for other Santa Clarita Valley school districts.

Trustees will interview candidates May 14 for the William S. Hart Union High School District school board post, which opened in March with the resignation of newly elected board member Peter Warren. They have opted to fill the seat via appointment to avoid the cost of a special election.

The Hart district governs Santa Clarita’s three high schools and three junior high schools, with one more of each scheduled to open this fall.

The candidates are George Aliano, a police officer; Adrienne Asarch, a teacher; Robert Crockett, an attorney; Bruce Fox, a police officer; Bill Manetta, president of the Santa Clarita Water Co.; Ronnie Silver, a newspaper columnist; James Temple, a computer lab technician for College of the Canyons, and Art Wilde, a telecommunications manager for AT&T.;

Fox was a trustee for the Castaic Union School District, but stepped down in December after moving.

Wilde served on the Sulphur Springs Union School District board. He didn’t plan to run for reelection in November, but mounted a last-minute, unsuccessful write-in campaign after seeing who the other candidates were.

Warren, 36, resigned in March, 105 days after he was elected to the post. He was elected to the second of three open seats and was the only candidate to support the defeated school voucher initiative.

Warren, a civil engineer, told fellow trustees that he was going to work for a year as a consultant to a development company in Canada.

More news of the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys appears on B9.