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The months-long effort to oust Sunol Glen Unified School District Trustee Linda Hurley and Board President Ryan Jergensen from office is reaching its end as the small-town community gets set for the special recall election next week.
While some Sunol residents might have already made up their minds on whether to keep Jergensen and Hurley on the school board and have dropped off their mail-in ballots — which were sent out by the county during the first week of the month — others might still be deciding how to cast their vote.
The Pleasanton Weekly made several attempts to schedule interviews with Jergensen and Hurley over email ahead of the election, and when approached in person at last week’s board meeting, each declined to be interviewed for this story. Both are on record as openly pushing back against the recall effort.
“There is a minority of Sunolians that have apparently stated they want a recall of all but one board member,” Jergensen previously told the Weekly in February. “We will have to wait and see what the majority of voters of Sunol want. I have also heard from many Sunolians who are very disappointed by the group bringing this recall effort and want the board to continue the business of the school board.”
Even after the latest school board meeting on June 18, the arguments from each side have remained pretty much the same: folks who support the recall say they want to bring effective, transparent governance back to the school board while those against the recall continue to contend Jergensen and Hurley are good leaders who are being targeted for no reason.
And despite both officials’ past attempts at stopping the recall election through a lawsuit and their consistent claims that the ouster effort is being driven by outsiders or that the money wasn’t going to come through to cover the recall, Sunol voters will be making their decisions by Tuesday (July 2).
What led to recall ballot
Jergensen was reelected to serve a full four-year term on the Sunol school board in 2022 after he had previously served two years as a short-term trustee. After winning his bid, he was appointed as the current board president.
Hurley, on the other hand, was a newcomer to the board when she was elected to serve a two-year term in 2022. The longtime Sunol resident, former teacher and nurse would see her term end this fall, but a successful recall would force her out of her position prematurely.
Trustee Peter (Ted) Romo — who is the only one on the three-member board who is not facing a recall — was also elected to a four-year term in 2022.
At first, the new-look board had more pressing matters at the beginning of 2023 with destructive storms that caused damage to the school, which the board is still working on repairing.
But then, more controversial issues started popping up.
“It has struck me on how this board has developed into focusing on what I view as culture war issues and not focusing on protecting and acting for the benefit of students, teachers and staff,” Romo told the Weekly in an interview. “It’s almost as if that’s secondary to the agenda they are putting forth.”
It first started when Hurley spoke out at a San Ramon Valley school board’s meeting in February 2023 where she identified herself as a Sunol school board member and criticized a book centered around the asexual and nonbinary author coming out to friends and family.
After that, Hurley had attempted to introduce two State Assembly bills for the board to adopt, which were in regard to book banning and having school staff report kids who identified as transgender to their parents. Both items were struck from the agendas last year.
But what seemed to be the last straw for many in the community was the infamous flag resolution that Hurley and Jergensen approved last September — Romo voted against it.
The resolution stated the district and its lone school could only fly the U.S. and state flag on the school’s flagpole, which both Hurley and Jergensen have said was a way for the district to avoid potential lawsuits from people who wanted to fly their own flags. The move came after a handful of people spoke at the end of a meeting in August 2023 who said if the school could fly the LGBTQIA+ Pride flag, they should be allowed to fly any flag they want.
“About a year ago my friend, Ryan Jergensen, had a question about flags on the Sunol School flagpole being displayed at the school. I gave him a simple and accurate answer,” Sunol resident Joe Hurley, who was a judge for over 30 years and the former spouse of Trustee Hurley, said in the Inform Sunol newsletter on June 10.
“If it is a local government entity like a city council or school board, there are some flags that cannot go up (any flag with religious connotations or undebatable negative connotations such as a terrorist organization),” he added. “Otherwise, if any flag is to be flown in the public square then, the public entity has to fly all other requested flags in turn. For the most part, it is all or nothing.”
While some continued to defend the flag resolution as necessary, others did not agree and have called the two trustees insensitive to LGBTQIA+ kids who want to see the Pride flag at their school. Many turned out to Sunol board hearings to voice their opinions before the new flag rule was adopted.
Just last Friday, Equality California — a statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization — put out a press release endorsing the recall of Jergensen and Hurley.
“We remain vigilant in holding current elected leaders to account — especially those who are spreading hateful agendas and putting the wellbeing and safety of LGBTQ+ youth at risk,” Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang said in the press release. “Voters are becoming wise to the extremism of their local school board members … Anyone who seeks to use their elected position to discriminate against LGBTQ+ youth is unfit to serve in public office, and we look forward to the careers of Trustees Hurley and Jergensen coming to a swift and appropriate end.”
During the May 14 board meeting, Romo suggested bringing back the flag resolution at a future board meeting and amending it. The resolution would make it so the school’s flagpole is only used for the U.S. and state flags but that any other flags, banners, signs or posters can be hung on other areas in the school with authorization by the superintendent.
But when people didn’t see the flag resolution amendment in the June 18 board agenda, they got mad at the board, specifically at Jergensen because he is the one who works with the superintendent to create the agenda.
Jergensen explained that the district’s legal counsel advised him to remove and table the resolution and not speak about it because the attorneys needed to review additional details in light of Sunol resident James Lowder’s threats at the May 14 meeting to sue the school if it did not fly his flags.
However, Romo said during the meeting that the board still needed to vote on at least tabling the resolution and that this was another example of Jergensen’s bad governance.
“You cannot, as a board, duck behind ‘legal said’ — that’s what Ryan and Linda do,” Romo said. “Ryan is very good at making sure that somebody else takes the fall for whatever he’s deciding … he just sticks to his story of ‘Well, I’m just doing what the lawyers tell me to do.'”
“The board and trustees make decisions … lawyers give advice, that’s what they do but the trustees ultimately get to decide,” he added.
A divided Sunol
Walking around central Sunol last week, people could see a nearly equal number of properties with either pro-recall signs or anti-recall banners.
“The recall is funded by outside entities, and it is being pushed by citizens who have had the opportunity of leading our community for years and years,” Hurley previously told the Weekly in January. “They don’t want to give others an opportunity, and they aren’t willing to listen or discuss opinions other than their own. There are remedies for disagreement. The recall is punitive. I mean, I am up for election in November. This recall team is not putting the kids first; they are putting themselves first.”
The pro-recall campaign, United for Sunol Glen, began gathering signatures for a recall petition back in January and after getting enough names, it got the petition certified by the county the following month. The board then voted in March to hold the election in July, which went against what the pro-recall campaign wanted — it originally wanted the recall election in June.
Folks who are against the recall call out Romo for sparking the metaphorical fire that came from the flag resolution meeting in September. Some blamed him in the past for inviting members of the media and political outsiders who were against the flag resolution and a few, such as Hurley, believe Romo is behind the recall itself.
They also believe that outsiders who do not live in Sunol and are focused on the small town because of the politics behind the flag resolution are running the pro-recall campaign.
“Do not fall for the lies and mis-information being spread by this group of outsiders and special interest groups who are behind the recall effort,” Sunol resident Bob Frillman wrote in a Inform Sunol letter on May 28. “They are the ones who brought national attention and shame to our community by inviting outside agitators to provide a spectacle in front of our school and spread hateful lies about us. They are the ones who invited national news media to be present at our school on the same day as the insane demonstration put on by these outside agitators.”
Others like Stephanie Szto told the board during the June 18 meeting that she has not seen Romo do anything beneficial for the school since he was elected and that the school needs to return its focus on academics rather than entertaining Romo’s recent resolutions such as the one to censure Jergensen.
The censure resolution on May 14, which would have publicly denounced Jergensen’s attempt to have the district’s former lawyer obtain a copy of the signed petition for his upcoming recall, did not pass. Instead the board majority approved a censure resolution brought forward by Hurley against Romo on June 18 where she said Romo broke various bylaws and policies.
Folks on the anti-recall campaign have also said the recall is not just being run by outsiders who do not live in Sunol, but that it is also being funded by those outsiders. Leading up to this month, the anti-recall campaign’s other main argument was that the school will be taking on the cost of the recall, which is money that the school did not have.
But, as was recently announced by the recall campaign, not only did United from Sunol Glen raise over $19,000 to offset the costs for the recall, but it was all Sunol families who did so with the exception of one family who live on the border of Fremont and Sunol.
They have also continuously stated it is not outsiders who are running the recall, it’s Sunol families, former school board trustees and teachers.
While some commuter parents have declined to comment because they don’t want this conflict to affect their children at the school, others have said they take offense at being called an outsider. It is a particular sore point for these Sunol Glen School parents — families who have students enrolled in the K-8 school but live outside of Sunol’s voter boundaries so won’t be casting ballots in the recall election.
Joel Souza, a commuter parent who recently moved to Pleasanton but has been at the Sunol school ever since his son was in preschool there, told the Weekly he had never even heard of the term outsiders before politics started coming into these board meetings.
“We were never made to feel like outsiders until we started voicing our opinions,” Souza said.
He said over this past year, he has felt like commuter families are no longer welcome, the environment at the school has changed and that even though he still believes the school is great, he and his family have started asking the question of whether they should leave.
He said that the teachers, students and staff are what make the school great but what he is worried about is the issues and politics of Jergensen and Hurley trickling down to the classrooms.
Crystal Diamond, another commuter parent, said when she hears people call her an outsider, she knows it’s not true because she has a son teaching there and a son attending as a student. But even so, she knows that as a commuter, she has no say in the recall, which is why she said she has been holding her breath and waiting to see if people make the right decision to recall the two trustees.
“Not having a say in who the school board is and where they’re going to waste their efforts is frustrating,” Diamond said.
As for others on the pro-recall campaign, such as former Sunol board member Vic Cloutier, she has gone to each board meeting this past year to tell Hurley and Jergensen how they are constantly letting the community down.
She most recently called out Hurley at the June 18 meeting for not telling the community about being removed from the Alameda County School Boards Association toward the beginning of the year, as was revealed in a June 12 edition of The Sunolian. Hurley defended herself by saying she was let go as secretary, but she was never fully kicked out of the association and has continued to attend meetings.
Cloutier also responded to one of the people against the recall at last week’s meeting who said that the students and children are the ones being affected and that it’s sad to see the recall causing so much angst in the community that will trickle down to the kids.
“My LGBTQ kids no longer feel comfortable in Sunol; they won’t even come from college because of the anti-LGBTQ sentiments that they hear,” Cloutier said.
What comes next
There’s a lot of uncertainty going into the recall election.
The school recently appointed its new superintendent and principal following the news earlier this year that Molleen Barnes, who held the position for over 17 years, decided to retire after the current academic year ended.
Many people who support the recall have speculated that Barnes is leaving because of disagreements with Jergensen and Hurley and all of the contention that has taken place over the last year. Hurley continued to criticize Barnes during the June 18 meeting when former school board president Mike Picard presented a resolution that would have honored all the service of Barnes and husband Mark, who worked as a health and wellness coach.
Hurley said she couldn’t approve the resolution because of past allegations that Barnes was colluding with Romo on meeting minutes and agendas. Jergensen also did not approve the resolution because he did not appreciate how Picard drafted the resolution without input by the board, even though Picard said it was usually the board members who drafted similar resolutions in the past — he just decided to write it up himself.
With Barnes leaving the school, Shay Galletti, Pleasanton Unified School District’s coordinator of early literacy and numeracy, was officially appointed to take over during the June 18 meeting. She was announced as a finalist for the position earlier this month.
Galletti said at the June 18 meeting it was her dream four years ago to step into this position as the logical next step in her career. Despite the drama in Sunol, she said she looks forward to the job.
“I’m here to stay and work through our challenges so that we can build upon Sunol’s great strengths,” Galletti said. “I understand what your district is going through — I may not know because I have not been part of it … but that’s where listening comes in and that’s where the building of trusting relationships comes in as well.”
Her first day of her three-year contract will be on Monday (July 1), which means she will have to either work alongside the current board or figure out how to move forward without Jergensen and Hurley, who were both part of her hiring process along with Romo. Galletti was the board’s unanimous choice.
Another major issue, which the anti-recall campaign has brought up, is what would happen if the recall is successful and Romo ends up as the only trustee on the board.
Many who are against the recall have said it has been Romo’s plan all along to have full control. However, Romo said this is just a stunt by the opposition to create a false narrative and scare people into not voting.
And according to Cheryl Cook-Kallio, vice president of the Alameda County Board of Education, Romo wouldn’t be the only one on the board if the recall is successful.
“If for any reason vacancies should occur in a majority of the offices on any school district or community college district governing board, the president of the county board of education having jurisdiction may appoint members of the county board of education to the district governing board until new members of the governing board are elected or appointed,“ Cook-Kallio stated in a letter to Inform Sunol on June 18.
“The ACBOE is committed to carrying out the requirements of California Education Code 5094 only to the extent necessary to ensure that the Sunol Glen School Board can move forward with board business,” she added. “This includes rapidly returning the responsibilities of governing the Sunol Glen School District by ensuring that new members of the governing board are elected or appointed by the Sunol community.”
Despite any future uncertainty, the reality is the recall election is happening and will be paid for not by the school, but by the many Sunol families who donated to the school. The board approved those donations during the June 18 meeting, even though Hurley abstained from the vote because she said she thought the donations looked suspicious.
For Romo, he said Jergensen and Hurley have been victimizing themselves for too long and need to be held accountable, which is why he is hoping the recall is successful so that Sunol can go back to focusing on important work.
And if the two for some reason don’t get recalled, or don’t accept the results of the recall, parents like Diamond and Souza said they’ll have to continue to maneuver their way around the school because at the end of the day, they care about Sunol Glen — they just don’t care about the two trustees.
“If it doesn’t work out, that’s called democracy,” Souza said. “You take your licks and you move on. You keep resisting and you keep fighting the good fight.”
Sunol residents can drop off their vote-by-mail ballots at the official ballot drop stop locations or drop boxes set up by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office at the Niles Canyon Railway or at the Sunol Corners Little Market. They can also vote in person at Sunol Glen School from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. now through Monday and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Election Day next Tuesday.
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Christian, thank you for your thorough reporting! I always look forward to your articles and know that I am getting all sides of the issues!
What is up with these judges wives, former wife in this case.
The irony, Linda Hurly brings up the myth that outside influences forced the recall, while she spouts her beliefs at a San Ramon Valley school board meeting.