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Mountain View Whisman school board member Chris Chiang formally resigned his seat effective today, Aug. 9, because he has moved outside the district’s boundaries, after earlier this week indicating that he might stay on longer than expected.
The announcement came after confusion in recent days over whether Chiang was still serving on the board and disagreement over a district decision to suspend his official email account.
Chiang announced in May that he planned to move to Redwood City around the end of June and would therefore be departing the Mountain View Whisman school board.
It wasn’t until Friday, Aug. 9, that Chiang sent a formal letter to Santa Clara County Superintendent of School Mary Ann Dewan stating that he was resigning the board because he is “no longer a full-time resident within the district’s boundaries.”
Three days earlier, on Aug. 6, Chiang had emailed his fellow board members and Mountain View Whisman Superintendent Ayindé Rudolph to say that his family had faced a delay in moving to Redwood City and that he was still a board member. Chiang told them that if he hadn’t moved by Aug. 22, he might attend the board meeting scheduled for that night.
Asked about the apparent change of plans between Tuesday and Friday, Chiang told the Voice that the logistics of moving were more complicated than he had anticipated, and that he wanted to serve on the board for as long as possible. At the same time, Chiang wanted to wrap up his move and formally depart the board before the window closed for candidates to file to run in this November’s election.
Chiang’s spot on the board will be up for a vote in the November 5 general election and Friday, Aug. 9, is the final day for incumbents to file to run. If an incumbent doesn’t file, the window for other candidates to sign up is extended to Wednesday, Aug. 14. The two other incumbents whose terms expire this year, Laura Blakely and Laura Ramirez Berman, have both indicated that they don’t plan to seek re-election. Chiang said that with three seats open on the board, he hopes people are encouraged to enter the race.
Email account shutoff prompts confusion, disagreement
As for his Tuesday email alerting the district that he was still on the board, Chiang said it was prompted by discovering that the district had closed his official email account. According to Chiang, when he tried to log into his district email and realized that he couldn’t access it, he was surprised and emailed the district to let them know he was still on the board.
Rudolph, the district’s superintendent, told Chiang that shutting off his email account had come after consulting with the board and was prompted by Chiang’s use of his district email for “soliciting candidates,” which Rudolph said was illegal, according to a forwarded copy of Rudolph’s message. Rudolph’s explanation was sent after Chiang announced his resignation on Friday.
At issue, Chiang said, was a post he made in a community Facebook group, where he explained the process and cost to run for the board, said he had found the experience of serving meaningful and said he would be “delighted to provide any information or assistance,” listing his district email address. The post was later edited to remove the email.
Rudolph told the Voice that there is case law and legal precedent that government resources can’t be used for any election purposes. He added that he “did not specifically consult with the Board on whether to suspend his account,” but individually asked board members whether they had contact with Chiang over the summer. Rudolph said they reported that they hadn’t.
Rudolph also said that he called and emailed Chiang on Monday to try to verify whether he was still on the board. Without an answer, and based on Chiang’s prior statement about leaving the board at the end of June, Rudolph said he decided, without notifying the board, to have staff “start our typical protocol of archiving his MVWSD account.” When Chiang contacted the district the next day to say he was still on the board, Rudolph said that the district reinstated his account.
Chiang told the Voice that his opinion about his Facebook post differs from Rudolph’s, and that he doesn’t “think it’s a violation to inform the public that there’s an election and that it’s good for people to run.” But he also added that he doesn’t hold ill will towards the district and can understand why they may have believed he left the board.
In a follow up email to the Voice, Chiang said that he had always wanted to complete his move before the candidate filing window closed and to be part of any final decision making as a board member, but didn’t “seek to create one more issue.”
“I should have resigned earlier given there ended up being no summer business to attend to,” Chiang said. “I regret this is now a distraction from bigger issues.”
Wanting to be part of final decisions
According to Chiang, one of the main reasons he wanted to stay on the board as long as possible was in case there were decisions to make regarding the Shoreline tax district.
The district and city are at odds over how to split millions of dollars in tax revenue from a special tax district in the northern part of Mountain View. In June, Mountain View Whisman approved an agreement that didn’t match the one the city had put forward. Chiang was the sole “no” vote.
“You can’t accept a contract that’s not offered,” Chiang said. “I agreed with the city that it was a mystifying maneuver to vote as a board to accept an agreement that the city had not offered.”
In multiple decades of involvement in the school district, Chiang said that he had never seen such strained relations between the city and school district. He said the public needs to pay close attention to the situation, describing the relationship as “completely toxic.”
Rudolph told the Voice that while it’s true the relationship has been “frayed” coming out of the pandemic, he described the disagreements as being “only centered around items that we are negotiating.” The city and district continue to work on other initiatives, including educator housing, Rudolph said.
“Our team and I, as well as the board of trustees remain hopeful that these are just speed bumps and I am certain that City Council and the staff in City Hall feel the same way,” Rudolph said.
School board President Devon Conley described school board and council members as having “strong relationships,” and said she believes the two parties will continue to work together.
As for Chiang’s departure, she thanked him and district staff for working to resolve the confusion.
“Trustee Chiang’s years of service on the school board and his dedication to our community are greatly appreciated,” Conley said.
Moving is not complicated. I would have expected that as a Board Member he could handle this kind of task and set a clear deadline for ending his trusteeship. Onus is on him.
Why is none of this surprising? This board operates in such a chaotic fashion. I don’t know Chiang at all, but his point about the board and the city fighting is spot on. Mostly petty power plays, while kids education continues to suffer.
I had Superintendent Rudolph ‘cut off’ my own official officeholder email BEFORE the end of my elected term. A bit less than a week – but it was entirely clear to me it was but another small Rudolph Power Play.
The election law is clear – the ED Code on official office transition is clear – it did just not suit the big guy it seemed! Since this type of minor legal transgression (“micro-aggression”?) is usually not worth the effort / we can sometime just-let-it-go. But, “negotiations” as a title of a Closed Session public agenda item? ,,,, ah,,, legal fighting word(s)
Ayindé Rudolph continues to be an unmitigated disaster as school superintendent