|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Alameda County Registrar of Voters’ Office has formally certified the Sunol recall campaign’s two petitions to force a special election to determine whether Sunol Glen Unified School District trustees Ryan Jergensen and Linda Hurley will be removed from the board.
According to a press release from the recall campaign, United for Sunol Glen, the committee received the official certification notification for both petitions on Feb. 28, which means that the recall can now go to a vote. This comes after the recall campaign announced that it had exceeded the amount of signatures needed for certification.
“I’m just thrilled — and the campaign is thrilled — that the registrar certified the petitions relatively quickly,” Kelly Goldsmith, a Sunol parent who is on the United for Sunol Glen recall committee, told the Weekly. “They didn’t take the full 30-day window that was required, so we can all move forward with an election as quickly as possible.”
Jergensen told the Weekly that he still believes the people who have said they want a recall make up a minority of all Sunolians and that the community 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. That is what I will continue to do,” Jergensen said.
Hurley has not responded to requests for comment by time of publication.
In the press release, the committee shared what Cynthia Cornejo, a deputy registrar with the county, said in her notification to the group.
“Each petition contained sufficient signatures and qualifies for the issuance of an election order by your governing body,” Cornejo wrote in her notification to the recall committee. “Within 14 days of receiving the certificate of sufficiency from the county elections official, the governing body shall issue an order stating that an election shall be held to determine whether the officer named in the petition shall be recalled.”
According to the press release, the Sunol school board must send the order stating that an election will be held to the county by no later than March 13. It also states that the election itself is to be held “no less than 88 days from the issuance of the election order date or no more than 125 days.”
“Currently the ball is in the school board’s court in terms of ordering the election and scheduling the election, so now we just wait for the board to take action,” Goldsmith said.
The next scheduled board meeting is on March 13, which means the board can issue that order at that meeting or before.
If the school board does not issue that order within those 14 days, then the Registrar of Voters’ Office can set an election date five days after the 14 days are up, according to the office’s “Procedures for Recalling State and Local Officials” document.
“Local Sunol residents have made their voices heard,” Chris Bobertz, a Sunol resident and recall campaign committee member, said in the press release. “There is now a clear path forward to restore the school’s stability, retain the staff and teachers, and remove the division caused by Trustees Jergensen and Hurley.”
The committee further stated in its press release that the recall hasn’t been about the controversial flag resolution that the two trustees supported back in September or any single action that the two have taken.
It states that the recall is a result of the lack of trust the community has for Jergensen and Hurley — which is mirrored by the 84% of the Sunol Glen teachers and support staff union members who adopted separate votes of no confidence resolutions where they each expressed their distrust in both the trustees.
“Their attempts to bypass the by-laws, the systematic silencing of public voices and the creation of policies motivated by personal agendas, make both trustees Jergensen and Hurley unsuitable for the school, its student body, or its future,” the press release says.
The committee said that if the two trustees care about the school, they should resign immediately.
“The committee and many Sunolians who have signed the petition would see their resignations as an act of good faith and applaud their courage to do the right thing,” the group said in its press release. “We all wish to return to the beauty and charm of Sunol Glen School and the greater Sunol community.”
If the two trustees do resign, or if they are recalled after the special election is held, then an open call would be put out for anyone in the community so that they can step in and fill the empty seats temporarily.
The provisional vote would consist of a public process where the remaining member of the three-trustee board, Peter “Ted” Romo, 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.
However, Romo would not have any power to place anyone in those vacant seats. Instead, the Alameda County Office of Education would step in and help appoint provisional board members to make a quorum that would help get through a provisional election process.
The provisional board members, who would be members of the county board of education, would also help Romo during any regular meetings so that he wouldn’t be the only board member making decisions while other provisional trustees are being vetted, Goldsmith said.
“There’s a state education code … that states that if any vacancies ever occur in a majority of the seats in a district school board, then the president of the county board of education may appoint members of the county board of education until new members of the governing board are elected or appointed,” Goldsmith said.
She said that contrary to some of the disinformation that has been circulating in the community by the anti-recall supporters, this process is set in place so that Romo wouldn’t be the only one making any decisions on the board for other matters, as well as on who gets provisionally appointed to the board.
“It wouldn’t be fair, and frankly I wouldn’t like that either, if only trustee Romo was left and he got to pick everything on his own without a board majority or input from the community,” Goldsmith said. “They’ve been telling people that that will be the case when it certainly will not be.”
As the recall committee gets set to move to the next stage of the process, Goldsmith said the question isn’t if a recall will happen, it’s when and that she is proud of how the Sunol community has come together to put the decision on recalling the two trustees in the hands of the voters.
“It’s been a big community effort that has really brought a lot of people together,” she said. “None of us want to be doing this. But I would say one upside and bright side of this is that I’ve really been heartened and inspired by the community coming together to make change in the community and to hold elected officials accountable.
Pleasanton police vehicle, other car involved in injury collision at intersection near downtownJanuary 17, 2026 8:21 pm