Election Date Changed
The chief petitioners and leaders of Capistrano Unified Children First were successful in getting the election date for change on how we elect trustees moved from June to November.
While we really did want to have the opportunity to make that change prior to the November election, the school board was putting all their effort into stopping that. And also far too much money. After they continued to post-pone hiring the demographer and filed the lawsuit, we had to sit down and make a very hard decision.
We believe that the county committee would have kept the date in June if that’s what we had wished but we really felt that the chance of it going forward was growing smaller each day. With legal fees mounting, no hope for a waiver and no real guarantee that a decision would be made by a judge prior to the March 12 filing deadline, we were left with very little options.
So we will now vote in November to decide if we would like to change the way we elect trustees to a by-trustee or district election. This will open up the democratic process to more candidates and give voters more of a say in who represents them.
I noticed yesterday that the City of Newport Beach is looking into something very similar. They currently have 7 city council seats and elect at large but are considering going to a by-district election. Clearly this is a trend.
Tags: Capistrano Unified, CUSD, erin kutnick