JUDGE: DISTRICT VIOLATED ELECTION RULES

Errors sidelined Ramona plans for trustee-area votes

A San Diego Superior Court judge has ruled that the Ramona Unified School District violated the California Voting Rights Act when it held an at-large school board election on Nov. 3, 2020.

The May 4 decision by Judge John Meyer came in a two-day trial over a lawsuit attorney Kevin Shenkman filed against the district in October 2020. Shenkman alleged the district’s upcoming at-large election violated the Voting Rights Act and discriminated against Latinos by diluting their votes. He asked that a special election be held.

The Nov. 3 election was supposed to be the first for Ramona Unified with the district split into five areas, so voters could elect trustees in their own geographic region.

But the election was changed over the summer because of procedural errors by both the district and the San Diego County Office of Education. Instead, voters had at-large ballots for the two incumbents, Daryn Drum and Dawn Perfect, and two challengers, John Rajcic and Joe Stupar. Drum and Perfect won the election.

While Meyer agreed with Shenkman that the at-large election violated the Voting Rights Act, he said the district’s mistake was unintentional and that officials made an appropriate remedy by moving forward with plans for a trustee-area elec

tion in November 2022, when three seats will be open.

“I guess the positives are that we ended up with an appropriate map and because there is a court ruling there is no way RUSD can revert back to an at-large election system,” Shenkman said after the ruling. “On the negative side, it’s unfortunate that it took all of this to get there. That’s just sad more than anything.”

Ramona Unified Superintendent Theresa Grace declined to comment May 16 on the ruling, saying the case was not fully resolved.

She said the district has worked to ensure that future board elections are by district.

“We ultimately transitioned, but November 2020 was at large,” Grace said. “The district’s 2022 board elections will be by trustee area.”

In February, the board approved Trustee Area 1, identified on a map as Main Street Ramona and the Old Julian Highway area, in which 52 percent of eligible voters are Latino.

When the board had to fill an open seat after longtime trustee Kim Lasley died in January, the candidates were from District 1. On March 21, the board appointed Mia Phillips to fill the remainder of Lasley’s term.

In the November election, the open seats are: District 1, Mia Phillips; District 2, Bob Stoody and District 5, Rodger Dohm, Grace said.

The problems began for the district after administrators failed to submit a waiver to the state Board of Education — a requirement for the trustee-area election — after the county’s approval.

“I don’t know what happened, but that step, getting the waiver through to the state board, fell through the cracks,” Grace said at the time.

District officials were notified in July 2020 by the county Office of Education that the state did not have Ramona Unified listed for trustee-area elections that year. By that time, four months before the election, it was too late to take the waiver matter before the state board, and the district had to revert to an at-large election, Grace said.

The county dropped the ball as well, officials said, by not following up on Ramona’s waiver status.

It was Shenkman who got the trustee-area election process started in April 2018 by sending the district a letter demanding it comply with the California Voting Rights Act, which requires maintaining a fair election system that does not dilute the votes of minorities.

During a series of special meetings that began in September 2018, trustees started to consider moving from an at-large to trustee-area style of election. Although some board members expressed frustration at making the change, they said at the time their hands were tied by the private law firm’s pending litigation.

Shenkman said at the time that if the district had notified him in July when they learned of the errors, he would have helped them navigate the process and get the trustee-area elections in place for the Nov. 3, 2020, election.

Grace said the district was on a tight timeframe to try to get quick approval for the trustee-area election — and was also working to get schools ready to reopen in the midst of a pandemic.

“There were a lot of hiccups,” she said. “The state was in a state of pandemic also.”