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Opting to avoid a lengthy appointment process and get a new trustee acclimated just in time to face an election in November, board members of the Mountain View Whisman School District agreed Thursday night to instead leave the seat up until the general election this fall.
Trustee Chris Chiang announced his impending resignation earlier this month, as his plans to move to Redwood City this summer would make him ineligible to continue serving on the board. Under state Education Code and due to the timing, that gives the school board two options: call a special election, or appoint someone to replace him.
At the May 16 school board meeting, with Chiang recusing himself from the discussion, board members generally agreed that it would be best to wait until November and let voters pick the replacement. Chiang’s term expired in December this year.
The last time the school board faced this tough decision was also, coincidentally, prompted by Chiang stepping down. He resigned during his term as board president in 2015, leaving a vacancy that trustees opted to fill by appointment. The monthslong process led to a well-attended, busy meeting in Mountain View City Hall to winnow down nearly a dozen candidates before the board landed on a replacement.
But there was hardly appetite to repeat that again this year. With the special election coinciding with the 2024 general election in November, board member Bill Lambert said it was his preference to let voters decide, rather than four trustees. Even though an appointment would still need to compete to retain their seat at the ballot box, board member Laura Blakely said she was averse to crowning someone ahead of time as a short-term incumbent, which could give them an advantage.
“My concern about that is giving potential candidates an unfair advantage in the election,” she said.
Board member Laura Ramirez Berman said the school board always has big decisions to make that may need a fifth member, but that it would be a challenge to try to bring someone new up to speed on “a lot of issues in a very short amount of time.” She said she was comfortable having an open seat for the short stretch to the election.
Even during the brief vacancy period after Chiang’s departure in 2015, there were some difficult votes without a tie-breaking fifth member, including a volatile discussion over construction costs at Castro Elementary School that seemed doomed at first on a deadlocked 2-2 vote. The board’s composition has changed almost completely since then, however, with only Lambert still serving as a trustee.
Trustees sought verification, however, that choosing to wait until November’s election would not put the cost of a special election entirely on district taxpayers. Special elections are normally expensive efforts, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, when conducted during special mail ballot elections. By coinciding with the Nov. 5, 2024 Presidential General Election, the hope was that it would be rolled into the larger ballot and not dump printing and mailing costs solely on the district.
Probably the right call. A lot of work for someone to spend 4-5 months in the seat.