Published in the April 27 – May 10, 2016 issue of Morgan Hill Life
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An important tradition of the American democratic process in electing public officials is to provide the public with community forums in which candidates can show their communication skills, knowledge about relevant issues and their personal leadership style. The forums give candidates the opportunity to share with fellow citizens the reasons for running and to tell of their qualifications. These events provide a service to inform the voters and help them make their decisions at the ballot box.
Morgan Hill Life is partnering with the local branch of the American Association of University Women and the Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce to host a public forum for the two candidates running in the special June 7 election to fill a vacant seat on the Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Trustees.
The two candidates for the school board seat, who both said they will attend, are Pamela Torrisi, a 34-year special education teachers’ aid for the MHUSD as well as a local Service Employees International Union president for 10 years, and Tom Arnett, a research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation in San Mateo.
The candidate who wins will become the swing vote in a school board that has grown increasingly contentious during the past year. The board members are now mostly divided into two factions, with president Bob Benevento, Ron Woolf and Donna Ruebusch on one side and board members David Gerard, Gino Borgioli and Rick Badillo on the other side.
How did we get to this situation of having to hold a special election for a dysfunctional school board? In January 2015 soon after the swearing in of new board members Gerard, Borgioli and Ruebusch, we began to hear about the growing animosity among the trustees toward each other and toward Superintendent Steve Betando. The public realized there was a serious problem with the school board when at the May 26 closed session meeting a Morgan Hill Police Department officer had to be called to the district office to guard against possible physical violence. Nearly every board meeting since then has had a paid uniformed security guard to make sure the trustees and the public are safe.
In Morgan Hill Life’s June 10 issue, we published an editorial urging the board to put an end to its animosity. In a Community Voices column in the June 24 issue responding to our opinion, Trustee Gerard said there was no problem with any factions and suggested “a special session on board norms, relationships and values.” That session was held Aug. 11 at a meeting in which Dr. Ken Magdaleno facilitated to help the board work better as a team. By the end of that group therapy session, Magdaleno emphasized a basic civics class lesson: that in a democratic nation, the majority vote rules.
Soon after the “Unity of Purpose” session, the school board situation worsened. In August, the board voted 4-3 to reconfigure the district so sixth graders would attend middle schools. The next month, a small activist group calling themselves “Parents For Positive Change” started a recall campaign against Benevento. They were upset that he, along with fellow trustees Woolf, Ruebusch and Porter Jensen, voted for the reconfiguration. Trustees Gerard, Borgioli and Badillo voted against the change.
The recall campaign prompted a series of harassing emails by several of the Parents For Positive Change members to Benevento, Woolf, Ruebusch and Porter Jensen. It got to the point where Porter Jensen was also receiving so many disturbing phone calls and emails from one individual that the stress prompted her to resign from the board in late October. At the Dec. 8 special meeting, the board of trustees interviewed seven applicants for the vacant seat and split 3-3 on a deciding vote between two candidates, which led to the June 7 special election. It’s gotten so bad that the MHUSD board of trustees now has an embarrassing reputation throughout the state among educators.
Porter Jensen’s term would have ended in December so the winner of this race is filling an interim seat. What makes things even more complicated is that the November school board race will be a by-district race where MHUSD is divided into seven smaller districts and candidates must live in their respective district to run. Torrisi lives in Porter Jensen’s district so she can run as an incumbent if she wins in June. Arnett lives in another district so, unless he moves his home, he is essentially a lame-duck trustee if he wins.
The June 7 school board race is not one that local voters can take lightly. The candidate who wins will be going into a snake pit of a school board — and will need to show true leadership ability in working with potentially contentious fellow board members.
The candidate voters choose to represent them on the school board will play an important role in making sure MHUSD keeps focusing on the students. That’s why we encourage you to attend the May 5 forum and listen as Torrisi and Arnett explain to the community why they think they are qualified to fill the vacant seat and how they will work to once again have a unified Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Trustees.
