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The two Sunol Glen Unified School District Board of Trustees members who are currently facing a recall election in July were recently part of a lawsuit that tried to get the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office to stop the recall process after alleging election code errors.
But last month, an Alameda County Superior Court judge denied the petition from trustees Ryan Jergensen and Linda Hurley to cancel the recall election, stating that the objections they had regarding the original notice of intent to recall did not hold up in court.
“The court concludes that neither argument supports (Jergensen’s and Hurley’s) request for a writ directing the (Register of Voters) to reject the notices of intent and to stop further processing relating to Petitioners’ potential recall,” Judge Michael Markman wrote in an order on the merits on March 18.
Thomas Knutsen, an attorney from the Dublin-based Knutsen Law Offices who represented Jergensen and Hurley throughout this legal process, confirmed with the Pleasanton Weekly that their petition was denied but did not want to offer any further comments.
The Registrar of Voters’ Office also confirmed the petition was denied and told the Weekly it was not aware of any appeals made by Jergensen or Hurley at the moment.
Jergensen and Hurley have been under the spotlight for quite some time following their approval of a controversial flag resolution in September that limits the school and district to only fly the state and U.S. flag — effectively banning flags like the LGBTQ+ Pride flag.
Since then, Sunol residents, parents and other community members have been criticizing the two trustees’ leadership for a number of other reasons, which is what led to the formation of United for Sunol Glen — a recall campaign made up of people who want to remove the two trustees from the board.
Late last year the group began the process of recalling the two trustees by sending them each what’s known as a notice of intent to recall. After that, the recall campaign focused on its petitions, which they used to gather enough signatures from Sunol residents needed to certify the recall petition with the county. The special election was subsequently scheduled for July 2.
However, Jergensen and Hurley had issues with both the recall intent notices and with the petition, which is why they originally filed their objections with the registrar of voters in December. After those objections were dismissed by the registrar’s office, they filed a petition for writ of mandate with the court.
“There was a motion filed to get clarity on the notice of intent for the recall, which was brought by several members of the community and they have asked Linda and myself to be a part of that,” Jergensen said during the March 12 Sunol school board meeting.
Jergensen was responding to fellow Trustee Peter “Ted” Romo, who argued Jergensen and Hurley went to court in order to “block the recall efforts” and to “stop the democratic process as it is.”
“There is an effort to make sure this is done in the right way and not done in any way that is going against the election code. That is what we’re trying to do,” Jergensen added.
Knutsen stated in the original Jan. 8 petition for writ of mandate against the registrar’s office that after the two trustees received their recall intent notices, the two submitted their comments and objections “relating to the legal sufficiency of the notice of intent/petition for recall” to the registrar’s office.
“Petitioners identified what they believe to be a number of defects in the notices of intent,” Markman wrote in his March 18 order. “Based on those defects, they seek a writ of mandate directing respondents to reject the notices of intent and to refrain from certifying any petitions for recall based on the notices.”
The petition alleged that the registrar’s office failed and refused to act on those objections and that it unjustly moved forward with the recall procedures.
“The petitions for recall/notice of intent to circulate recall petition, and each of them, are defective and do not comply with California and Alameda County Election law,” Knutsen wrote in the Jan. 8 court documents.
According to Knutsen, one of the defects Jergensen and Hurley pointed out was that the statement of reasons for the recall exceeded a mandatory 200-word limit.
“Alameda County Election procedures and the elections code … demand the statement of reasons for recall not be more than 200 words. Substantial compliance is insufficient under the election code,” according to the Jan. 8 petition. “Compliance with this requirement is mandatory. If an actual word count is done it is clear the statement of reasons exceeds the maximum limit.
The other main defect, according to Knutsen, was that the notice of intent to circulate a petition for recall used the wrong language when it came to having them sign their home addresses. It states that the notice indicated to have them sign their street address when the provisions of the election code instead requires they list their residence address.
“This has not been corrected by recirculating the notice of intent and securing the required information concerning those individuals signing the petition,” Knutsen wrote in the Jan. 8 petition.
He also listed out several other allegations including the failure to include a list of sponsors in the recall notice; lack of proof of serving the notice and proof of publication; not including the cost of the special election in the notice of intent to circulate a recall petition; not requiring people who signed the petition to also list their occupation; and the notice of intent to circulate a petition containing false and misleading information;
And while Knutsen said that the registrar office’s assertion that the notice did comply with the 200-word limit was factually incorrect, the judge’s decision last month asserts otherwise.
“The (Registrar of Voters) concluded that the word count for the statement in the two notices of intent at issue was under the 200 word limit, and the court sees no reason to question the (Registrar of Voters) decision in that regard,” according to the March 18 court documents.
According to the March 18 order, the registrar’s office pointed out that all proper nouns, including geographical names, are considered one word. That means the “Sunol Glen Unified District Code of Ethics for Board Members Norms of Governance and Behavior”, which Jergensen and Hurley originally counted as 12 words, is only counted as one.
The other thing the court decided it did not need to correct through the writ of mandate, was the street address issue. While Jergensen and Hurley argued that the phrase street address is not the same thing as residence address — which would have made the forms non-compliant and should have forced the registrar’s office and the court to reject them — the court found on March 18 that the two trustees were wrong.
“Above the boxes seeking information from the proponents of the recall signing the notices of intent is the following simple statement: ‘The printed names, signatures, and residence addresses of the proponents are as follows,'” according to the March 18 decision. “The use of the words ‘street address’ in the boxes containing the signature and other handwritten information for each of the proponents is clarified by the earlier statement and is not at all ambiguous.”
The judge further states that the phrase street address in fact ensures they did not use a post office box instead of a street address to identify where they lived.