Petition was delivered to county, will now move on to registrar of voters for signature certification
The Cloverdale Unified School District announced Friday night, Jan. 15, that the Sonoma County Office of Education has received a petition calling for a special election for the board seat that was appointed to Brandon Axell on Dec. 15.
To move on to the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters, the petition needed the signatures of 1.5% of Cloverdale’s registered voters, which, according to the district, equals approximately 90 signatures.
Now, Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Steve Herrington will forward the petition to the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters, who will process it and certify the petition before an election is considered. Once the petition is certified, Herrington will order a special election, triggering the end of Axell’s provisional appointment and the beginning of the election planning process.
According to language in the petition, a special election will cost the district between $4-$6.50 per voter, or about $26,380-$42,868.
In a public statement issued on Jan. 11, Cloverdale Unified School Board President Preston Addison said that in addition to the cost of the special election, the district will also have to undertake $30,000-$50,000 in consultants and legal fees to manage the election process.
“Our limited reserve is used to cover costs like payroll while we await funds from the state. Additional reserve funds are used to pay for elective supplemental programs such as libraries, gardens, school safety and other programs that impact the learning environment and that our community highly values,” Addison wrote, addressing comments made on social media about the district having “large unrestricted reserves.”
“As reported in our recent budget analysis, the district is in deficit spending and a special election will not only subvert the democratic voice of the Cloverdale electorate, but will also add almost $100,000 to our deficit. Inevitably, these costs will impact staff, students and our community for years to come,” Addison said.
Four people — Brandon Axell, Jenny Candelaria-Orr, Johannes Hoevertsz and Christina Lepe-Duarte — applied for the district’s vacant trustee seat and were interviewed during a public school board meeting in December. Axell, who was appointed to a different school trustee seat in May 2020, came in fourth in November’s election.
During the December meeting, the board voted 3-0-1 to appoint Axell, with then-President Jacque Garrison, Addison, newly-elected Trustee Ashley White in favor of the appointment. Newly-elected Trustee Gabriela Mendoza-Torres abstained from the vote.
When it came time to fill the board vacancy left by former trustee and current Cloverdale council member Todd Lands, the district chose to appoint someone to the position because of the cost of holding a special election.
According to Addison’s Jan. 11 statement, this is the first time that a special election has been filed for a school board provisional appointment.
A timeline related to special elections determines that an election must be conducted no later than 130 days after the county calls the special election, though if an election date falls between 130 and 150 days after the county calls the special election, it can be conducted then.
Per the district’s announcement, the timeline for a special election means that the district can expect to seat a new trustee between July and August of this year. The term for this trustee seat is set to expire in November 2022, so whoever is elected would serve as trustee for approximately a year and a half.
