Sunol Glen school board recall targets trailing in polls
Two members of the three-member Sunol Glen Unified School District appear to be losing narrow recall votes against them based on early tallies posted on the Alameda County Registrar of Voters website.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Ryan Jergensen was trailing by a vote of 254 to 218 and Linda Hurley was losing by a vote of 249 to 223.
Recall supporters said they targeted the pair for a litany of reasons, including alleged mismanagement of board meetings, that came to a head when the two voted last year to adopt a policy forbidding flags other than the U.S. and the California flags on the school's flagpole.
Critics said the policy was in response to the school's decision to fly the LGBTQ Pride flag after someone tore it off a campus fence.
Chris Bobertz, a Sunol resident with children in the one-campus K-8 district and a member of the pro-recall group United for Sunol Glen, said they were hoping for a wider margin of victory but are happy the votes are trending in their favor.
"It's not like the definitive outcome that I guess we were looking forward to, but we are hopeful," Bobertz said. "Above all we're looking forward to getting past this and moving to a more boring way of life, the way that things were before all this."
The flag fracas and the recall election repeatedly landed the sleepy unincorporated Alameda County community in the headlines over the past year or so and appears to have caused hurt feelings and acrimony throughout the close-knit town.
Jergensen and Hurley didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
If the results stand, the district will have to hold an election to replace the two ousted board members but it's unclear when that might happen.
Prior to such an election, the president of the Alameda County Board of Education, Janevette Cole, is required by law to appoint members of her own board to temporarily replace them until voters select permanent replacements.
Alameda County Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis didn't respond to requests for information about when he might finalize the vote count.