Hart district board race sees new challenger
Kelly Trunkey set to run against Joe Messina for spot during November race
William S. Hart Union High School District board member Joe Messina recently announced intentions to seek re-election and over the weekend, a challenger has appeared for the upcoming November 2018 school board race.
Messina, who’s seeking a third term on the governing board for the Hart district, ran unopposed in 2013. (The district recently approved electoral changes that moved the election to line up with the general election in November, put the school districts trustees in their own areas and added a year to everyone’s term. This year’s election will be the district’s first that lines up with the November general election.)
The Hart district educates more than 22,000 public junior high and high school students, covering all of the Santa Clarita Valley. The district has five separate areas, each with its own trustee. Messina currently represents area No. 5, which covers much of Saugus and is mostly in the northern half of the Santa Clarita Valley.
Kelly Trunkey announced her intention to run against Messina. Trunkey is married to Chris Trunkey, president of the Saugus Union School District’s Governing Board. (SUSD educates about 11,000 K-6 students who primarily live on the west side of the Santa Clarita Valley.)
A filing for Trunkey for Hart School Board 2018 was available and active on the Secretary of State’s website as of Monday.
“I am running to bring a much-needed fresh perspective to the Hart board,” Kelly Trunkey
said in a statement to The Signal. “As a parent of a current student in the district, I’m acutely aware of the new realities facing our students and teachers every day. From safety and security to diversity and inclusion, our students deserve to be represented by a trustee that accepts them as they are, and embraces inclusion and diversity instead of mocking it. As the next Hart trustee, I will proactively seek student, parent, and staff input for solutions that will help them feel supported and safe at school.”
Messina said Wednesday he was looking forward to the challenge and appreciated there would be more involvement in the election this time around.
“I love when people exercise their freedoms and their rights,” Messina said. “If someone thinks they have something to add to help their kids, then God bless ’em—go for it.”
Among his biggest priorities, Messina said that keeping the Castaic High School project on track, state funding and career tech education programs were his top three.