The countdown has started, to replace the Mesa Vista School Board member who abruptly resigned via email, prior to the start of the Board’s most recent meeting.
Board members have 45 days to agree on a replacement for former secretary Jessica Manzanares, who ended her service to the Board, June 28, with a one-sentence letter.
The letter didn’t explain why she chose to step down from the position. She had two more years remaining on her term.
“I am resigning my position as School Board Secretary effective immediately,” Manzanares wrote.
Although the letter only mentions her resigning the position as School Board secretary, it is intended to serve as a notice for her resignation from the entire Board.
Manzanares said she stepped down because she wanted to spend more time with her daughter, who is set to graduate in May 2018.
“I have a daughter who will be a senior this year and I would really like to relish in that,” she said. “I have kind of stepped back from a lot of things that were taking up a lot of my time. I just thought there were more important things, so I thought that I would step down and let someone else have at it.”
Manzanares’s resignation comes a day after Board member Moises Peña sent a June 27 email to the governing body, asking her to step down. He asked her to resign because she moved out of the District in which voters elected her to serve.
“It is well known within the community that you are no longer a resident of La Madera, nor a resident of our school district,” he wrote in the email addressed to the Board and the attorneys at Cuddy & McCarthy, LLP. “While at the Law Conference on June 3, at the request of several constituents, I spoke with attorneys Patricia Salazar Ives and Carol Helms in regards to this issue. They said you should have resigned the same day you moved out of the District based on morals, ethics and state statute.”
The Board appointed Manzanares to finish the seat vacated by Fernando Gurule, the last Board member to resign. He stepped down in the spring of 2013, following a fatal Mesa Vista School bus accident that left the driver dead and several students injured.
Gurule’s stepson was one of the students on the bus and his wife is a named plaintiff in the case. To remain on the Board may have created a conflict.
The law mandates the Board find a suitable replacement within the prescribed time, or face intervention from the state’s Department of Education.
“If a qualified person is not appointed to fill the vacancy within forty-five days from the date the vacancy occurred, the state board (department) shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacancy until the next regular school district election,” the law governing School Board vacancies states.
However, New Mexico School Board Association officials published a list of best practices for filling School Board seats in between elections, that comes with a few more requirements designed to promote transparency.
The Association recommends issuing a public notice that explains a Board member’s duties and the requirements one must meet in order to be considered. Those recommendations also suggest holding public interviews so the community can observe or participate.
Standstill
The June 28 meeting grew somewhat tense as Board members exchanged barbs regarding the policy for electing new officers.
With Manzanares out, the governing body came to a standstill trying to elect new officers.
Current Board Vice President Marvyn Jaramillo and member Andy Lopez were nominated by Peña, and Board President John Garcia, respectively, to serve as president.
For Board vice president, Jaramillo nominated Peña and Garcia nominated Lopez.
The vote resulted in a tie. Jaramillo suggested opening the nominations for a second round of voting and this prompted a nearly 30-minute aside, that involved calling the District’s $190-an-hour attorney.
The attorney’s guidance involved nothing more than reading the District’s policy regarding electing officers out loud and giving his opinion on what he thought the words meant.
Since the Board couldn’t come to an agreement on who should be the next president and vice president, it was Garcia’s and Lopez’s assertion that the former should keep his seat until the tie could be broken.
“I am not going to do that,” Garcia said in response to Jaramillo’s request to hold another round of voting. “I was advised by our legal counsel Dan Castille that if this were to happen for any given office or position, they (the office holders) would remain as they are until our missing Board member is replaced.”
Garcia ultimately refused to hold another round of nominations and voting, so Garcia will remain president and Jaramillo will remain vice president.
The Board is holding a work session to vet possible candidates, at 6 p.m., July 18, in the Mesa Vista High School auditorium.