Organizers hoping to force the recall of Orange Unified school board President Rick Ledesma and Trustee Madison Miner announced they submitted petition signatures this week to election officials for verification.
Each petition requires 13,046 valid signatures to move forward; OUSD Recall leaders said they submitted more than 18,000 for each and also touted they had collected that many several weeks before the Nov. 9 deadline for submitting to the Orange County Registrar of Voters.
The Registrar now has until Nov. 8 to validate the signatures for certification of the petitions. If the OUSD board is notified enough signatures were gathered, it would have 14 days to then schedule a recall election. If the board failed to act, the Registrar would determine the date of the election.
Miner described the “radical recall” as being an “effort to overthrow the 2022 election that elected me to the board” and that it is being spearheaded by the teacher’s union.
“It’s essential to note that protecting students is my sole purpose, and the radical recall movement has made it clear that their quest for power over the children is nothing more than a strong political maneuver to influence and shape the children of Orange Unified,” she said. “This has nothing to do with protecting or educating children.”
The OUSD Recall group launched the recall effort after the school board called a special meeting in January to fire Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen and place an assistant superintendent on paid leave without explanation and over the objections of many in the school community. It argues there has been an exodus of OUSD staff because of the board members’ actions and wasteful spending practices.
Ledesma did not respond to requests for comment.
He has been elected to the OUSD board three times since 2014; he was most recently re-elected to a four-year term in November 2022. Miner is in her first term on the school board.
