After nearly a year of a contentious effort to oust two Orange Unified School District board members, voters so far are approving of an ouster.
The effort to remove board President Rick Ledesma and Madison Miner really began in January, after the board ousted the district’s superintendent in a surprise meeting. But the campaign, on both sides, ramped up as the primary election day neared, with just under $200,000 spent by the pro-recall side and over $220,000 spent by those defending the trustees.
As of Wednesday evening, March 6, the results show 52.5% of voters in favor of recalling Miner and 52.7% of voters in favor of recalling Ledesma. Ballot counting is still ongoing, and county elections officials have until April 2 to report final results to the secretary of state.
“We are not surprised the OUSD community support(s) the recall of two trustees who clearly were not working in the best interest of OUSD students,” said Darshan Smaaladen, chair of the group spearheading the recall, OUSD Recall.
See the latest election results.
“We are happy that so many people felt strongly enough to vote despite very low voter turnout county-wide,” Smaaladen said.
Still, Randall Avila, the executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, says he believes Ledesma and Miner will remain on the OUSD board. The OC Registrar of Voters estimates more than 270,000 mailed-in, dropped-off and other ballots remain to be counted.
“We started election night down 60% to 40%, and as ballots continued to be counted throughout the night, we cut that lead,” Avila said, adding that outstanding ballots are from Republican-heavy vote centers.
Miner and Ledesma did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Orange Unified Educators Association President Greg Goodlander, who supported the recall efforts, said he is “cautiously optimistic” about the current results. The union’s message of “collaboration with parents to end the corruption and chaos”…
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