School Board to Pick Gonzales’ Replacement

The four remaining members of the Oxnard Elementary School District board will appoint the successor to trustee Ray Gonzales, the board decided Wednesday.

Gonzales resigned earlier this month after being arrested by Oxnard police on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to sell.

Whoever is appointed could run for election in November to fill the remaining two years of Gonzales’ term, which ends in 2002.

“We’ve been functioning . . . as a four-member board. I don’t think that’s the best way to do business,” trustee Arthur Joe Lopez said.

Already, four contenders have emerged for the Oxnard Elementary School District seat. Tom Nielsen, Bill Thrasher, Catherine Mervyn and Kathleen Riggs have written letters to the district expressing interest in serving on the board.

All four possible candidates have had some involvement in the schools. Nielsen is vice president of the district’s PTA; Thrasher is a former Oxnard High School administrator; Mervyn is a retired teacher, and Riggs is a former board member.

Two of the four remaining board members will also be up for reelection in November. Board President Susan Alvarez is finishing her second term, and Francisco Dominguez is completing his first term.

School board members said the new trustee should have experience in education, be willing to devote a lot of time to the district, and be able to get along well with others.

“We’ve been handicapped for a while,” Alvarez said Wednesday, “so we need to get somebody who is willing to be open-minded and willing to listen to ideas.”

Board member Dorothie Sterling, who abstained in the 3-0 vote, said she wanted a special election. She wanted voters to determine who would succeed Gonzales.

“It’s a public seat, and the public should have the right to choose,” Sterling said.

The board also decided against a special election, because it could cost the district as much as $80,000.

Late Wednesday, board members were still deciding how to go about appointing a new trustee who would take office Aug. 9, when Gonzales’ resignation takes effect.

Gonzales resigned June 9, nine days after he was arrested in Oxnard on suspicion of possessing methamphetamine for sale. School board members, as well as Supt. Richard Duarte, had urged Gonzales to step down, saying he was setting a bad example for the district’s 15,400 students.

In addition to the recent arrest, Gonzales was found guilty last September of misdemeanor spousal battery after a jury concluded he pushed his wife into a glass window during an argument. The month before, he lost his job as director of the county-run CalWORKS center in La Colonia because of what superiors called poor job performance.