Three school boards stilled the public's voice

San Diego Union Tribune SOUTH EDITION
January 19, 2008

Three school boards stilled the public's voice
[Chula Vista Elementary, Sweetwater Union High, San Diego County Office of Education]
EDITORIAL
Click HERE to see original editorial.

It is quite disappointing when citizens are thwarted from participating in the democratic process.

That was the case when the county Board of Education, in a 3-2 vote, blocked the public's voice from being heard. The entrenched bureaucracies and officeholders of the Sweetwater Union High and Chula Vista Elementary school districts were guilty as well. They threatened legal action to block citizens from having a say.

At issue was a proposal to change the way school board elections are held in the two districts. Currently, candidates must run for a specific seat number, which has no relationship to anything.

Under the proposed change, candidates would run for a seat representing a specific neighborhood, a portion of the district, but would be voted upon districtwide.

The change was proposed to encourage geographic diversity. Each neighborhood would be guaranteed a representative on the board. Chula Vista Elementary is the largest elementary district in the state yet all five trustees live in the same Bonita neighborhood. Sweetwater's situation is similar.

Change proponents presented petitions asking the county board to put the issue on the November ballot. There are three ways to qualify such measures for the ballot, and this proposal met all conditions for doing so at the discretion of the county board.

Instead, school district attorneys Bonifacio Garcia and Jack Parham, who don't even live in the San Diego region, threatened legal action against the county. Even if Garcia and Parham acted pro bono, the implication was clear: Taxpayer resources could be used to keep taxpayers from having a voice.

County trustee Susan Hartley voted against the proposal, finding fault with neighborhood maps attached to the petitions (a non-issue since the county would be tasked with drawing the actual maps). The number of petitions submitted met the standard for this option, yet board President Robert Watkins voted against, saying he preferred signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters. (What, to make the process even more costly?)

There are a number of ways to conduct school board elections. Most common is the open election, with say the top two vote-getters of seven candidates elected. This can pit incumbent against incumbent, something that never happens in the imaginary seat-number system used by Sweetwater and Chula Vista. San Diego Unified has a primary to select the top two vote-getters in a neighborhood. They run system-wide in the general.

County trustee Nick Aguilar, who voted for the proposed change, said there was no compelling reason not to put it on the November ballot. He called the rejection “abhorrent” and “undemocratic.”

Fitting adjectives, those. And why are two school districts so afraid of allowing the public to speak?

We hope the proponents don't give up. If they recirculate new petitions without maps, trustee Hartley, if she is a person of her word, would be honor bound to vote for the proposal. Obtain signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters and forget about trustee Watkins – he will simply be an irrelevant obstacle to the democratic process.

This issue is really about community empowerment. Sadly, neither South Bay jurisdiction has it.

Would it be acceptable for all five county supervisors to reside in Rancho Santa Fe? Or for eight La Jolla residents to comprise the San Diego City Council? Hardly. Neither should geographic isolation be acceptable in the Sweetwater and Chula Vista districts.