Letter: Challenging the petition to unseat school board member
To the editor,
– I challenged the petition to unseat Kenney Enney based on the fact that government code 9600 says that statutes that change laws that call for elections go into effect immediately. SB1061 changed the wording on the petition to reflect the cost per student of the special election. The entire cost of the election was given on the petition, not the cost per student. Why is this important? Because signers were told that the money for the election would not come out of education funds. They purposely want to hide that fact.
Lozano and Smith in their opinion saying that they did not think I was correct about that appealed to the plain language regarding the statutes. The plain language of the petition says it calls for a special election to be held. The plain language of Government Code 9600 says that statutes that call for an election go into effect immediately. The word call is used in both cases. Lozano and Smith used the logic of the plain language. Both the petition and the government code 9600 uses the word call. The change in the petition wording is substantive because it reflected a desire by the legislature to avoid the exact situation we are in right now.
The fact that no one seems to want to follow the law is a bad precedent, just fosters disrespect for our legal institutions and just encourages people to become apathetic. That is the real threat to democracy, that people just give up participating because they feel the deck is stacked against them. I hear this over and over, that they fear the power of progressives, they are afraid to speak out and they want nothing to do with the political system. I am going to ask Dr. Brescia to follow the law and will never stop bringing up the point that the petition is null and void, violates the letter and spirit of the law, that the true cost of the election was hidden from signers and this whole situation is a big black mark against the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District.
– Gary Lehrer
Related: Locals file petition to oust Paso Robles School Board member
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