Orange Recall Backers Await Ruling

A Superior Court judge is expected to rule today whether to remove two advisory measures from the ballot of a June 26 recall election targeting three Orange Unified school board members.

Recall supporters say the two measures, added to the ballot by the school board, are a transparent effort to make the board look good and deflect the recall vote.

The two advisory measures ask voters whether they agree with the board’s policy of increasing teacher salaries without increasing property taxes, and whether voters agree that the district should continue back-to-basics and strict academic standard reforms.

The hearing is the latest round in the contentious eight-month campaign to recall board members Linda Davis, Maureen Aschoff and Martin Jacobson, whose district has been racked by conflict and labor disputes in recent years. Recall supporters say the three targeted board members are mismanaging the district and failing to provide children a quality education. The recall is not aimed at four other board members.

Kimberlee Nichols, a parent in the district, and the Orange Recall Committee filed a writ of mandate seeking the removal of the measures, which they consider illegal.

“We are asking the court to take the measures off the ballot because they are political partisan statements that are being made in support of the board members who are being recalled,” said Pamela Moore, attorney for the Orange Recall Committee.

Measure A says the school board “approved a contract with the teachers in October 2000 that increased top teacher salaries 23.2% to $69,692. . . . Do you agree with the board’s approach of increasing teacher salaries without increasing property taxes?”

Measure B says the current school board “has adopted a back-to-basics approach to education and strict academic standards at each grade level. . . . Do you agree that the district should continue these reforms?”

Moore said that if the court “found for any reason that those measures should be placed on the ballot, at a minimum they should come after the recall votes.”

The school board, she said, “is attempting to prevent the recall of some of the members by misrepresenting supposed achievements where the voter would read those first before voting on whether or not to recall members.”

Mark Bucher, the school district’s attorney, argues that the measures were placed on the ballot exactly as authorized by the state Election Code. “There is nothing illegal or improper about them,” he said.

“The supporters of the recall want the judge to deny the voters a chance to express their opinion on whether taxes should be raised to pay for higher teacher salaries and whether back-to-basics should be continued in the Orange Unified School District,” he said. “The Orange Unified School District believes the voters should have the opportunity to express their opinion on these issues.”

Superior Court Judge Francisco Firmat also is expected to rule Thursday on voter-pamphlet arguments against the two measures. The district contends that recall supporters have written false and misleading arguments against the measures, and is seeking to have those arguments stricken from the pamphlets before they are sent out.

Bucher said that in their written arguments against the two measures, recall supporters “spent their whole time talking about the recall, making personal attacks and accusations instead of talking about the issues covered by Measure A and B.”

In response, Moore said the recall committee “has submitted documentation that supports the facts alleged. In addition, many of the statements are opinions, which cannot be considered true or false.”

Meanwhile, the Orange Recall Committee last week asked the Orange County district attorney’s office to investigate whether the school board violated the state open-meeting law when it voted to file a writ of mandate to block the printing of arguments against the two ballot measures in the voter pamphlet.

The committee alleges that the school board decided to take the recall committee to court before its April 7 emergency meeting and that it improperly changed the agenda at the last minute.

“That claim is completely without merit,” Bucher said.