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The group of parents and community members working to remove Sunol Glen Unified School District Board President Ryan Jergensen and Trustee Linda Hurley filed its petition Tuesday morning in its bid to force a special recall election after obtaining more than enough signatures needed for certification, a spokesperson for the recall committee said.
The group needed at least 246 signatures from registered Sunol voters by Tuesday in order to submit the petition to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office for verification and initiate the process to place the recall on a special election ballot.
Kelly Goldsmith, a Sunol parent who is on the United for Sunol Glen recall committee, told the Weekly that while she wouldn’t share exactly how many signatures were obtained, she said they not only got more than enough, but that the number of people who signed the petition exceeded the amount of people who voted for both of the trustees back in November 2022.
“We substantially exceeded the number of signatures required to get on the ballot,” Goldsmith said. “More Sunol voters signed to recall both of the trustees than voted for either of them in their elections.”
Jergensen and Hurley, who have publicly denounced the recall effort, have not responded to requests for comments as of time of publication.
The Registrar of Voters’ Office will have up to 30 days to validate the petition and grant or deny it certification. The office can also certify the petition before those 30 days are up — which Goldsmith believes will happen.
“I’m pretty confident they will be certifying,” she said. “We’ve started the timeline that kind of gives us at least a general idea of when an election could potentially happen. Now that the petitions are with the registrar of voters, this 30-day window is the first deadline that we’ve met that has started that clock for a potential election.”
If the Registrar of Voters’ Office certifies the results of the petition, it will then notify the two trustees and then present the certification to the entire board, which will then have 14 days to issue an order stating that a recall election will be held.
If the school board does not issue that order within 14 days, then the Registrar of Voters’ Office will set an election date five days after the 14 days are up.
After that order has been issued, either by the registrar’s office or by the school board, then the election can be held no sooner than 88 days or no later than 125 days. The recall election can also be conducted within 180 days after the order is issued if it gets consolidated with the March primary election, however, Goldsmith said she thinks that is unlikely to happen given the calendar.
Jergensen began his first full, four-year term on the three-person Sunol school board after winning the seat in the November 2022 election after serving in a temporary capacity. During that same election, Hurley claimed a shorter two-year term on the board, which is set to expire this November.
Over the last year, there have been several incidents that critics have pointed to as why the community needs to recall both trustees. These incidents range from recent heated debates at the first school board meeting of the year, to the controversial resolution the two trustees voted on last September that limits the district and its Sunol Glen School to only fly the U.S. and California state flags.
Jergensen and Hurley have also faced criticism for bad governance such as not transitioning the board president title away from Jergensen upon the new year and not allowing enough time for community members to speak during public comments at past board meetings.
According to the pro-recall group, 84% of the Sunol Glen teachers and support staff union members have also adopted separate votes of no confidence resolutions where they each expressed their distrust in both the trustees.
Goldsmith said that the lack of support from the teachers and staff, coupled with the amount of signatures the pro-recall group obtained, should serve as clear reasons why the two trustees must step down and resign.
While the pro-recall group has been working on gathering signatures, Goldsmith alleges that One Sunol — an anti-recall campaign made up of many people around the town who support Jergensen and Hurley — and the two trustees have been continuously spreading misinformation and disinformation about the recall campaign.
Some of that misinformation included statements made by One Sunol where the campaign stated that the names of those who signed the petition would be made public.
“These recall petitions will be turned in to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters by the proponents of these recall efforts and will be public record for the county officials and the public to view and check the validity of each signature,” a now-deleted version of the One Sunol website stated.
Goldsmith challenged that at the Jan. 23 board meeting in January and said that after she told the board and the public that the Registrar of Voters’ Office confirmed with her that the signatures wouldn’t be made public, the website took down that comment.
Hurley also previously said that a recall would cost the school district $20,000 when in fact, Goldsmith said it would be in the $15,000 to $17,000 range.
But Goldsmith argued the lies the anti-recall campaign has been spreading have been nothing more than projections and that when it comes down to it, the recall isn’t about scaring people or attacking the trustees themselves as individuals — it’s about getting rid of two trustees who have not been doing a good job.
“No matter where you stand in regards to whether or not they should be recalled. The reality is that the trustees have lost the trust and confidence of their teachers, their staff, and the greater Sunol Glen community,” Goldsmith said.
She said that because the two trustees lost the trust of those who they govern and represent, she doesn’t see how the two can continue serving on the board — especially knowing how many people signed the petition and how many teachers and staff voted no confidence.
“I feel and I know many agree that the honorable thing to do at this point would be to resign and step aside so that new leadership can be put in place faster without the burden and delay of the recall process,” Goldsmith said.
As far as who would take over the two seats, if Jergensen and Hurley are recalled, Goldsmith said that was another piece of information that was important to the recall campaign as they were gathering signatures.
She said that once the seats are vacated, an open call would be put out for anyone in the community to throw their hat in the ring for consideration to provisionally be voted as a trustee. A public process would be held where the board and the community would interview, review and vote any of those candidates into the seats until the next election is held, which would be in November.
She also explained that because Peter “Ted” Romo would be the only one left on the board if the recall election were successful, that the Alameda County Office of Education would appoint provisional board members to make a forum that would help get through a provisional election process.
“It’s a very transparent process and it certainly does not involve trustee Romo appointing whoever he chooses,” Goldsmith said.
