Campaign aims to recall Tolleson school board leaders
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Controversial financial decisions by the Tolleson Union High School District have inspired a recall campaign against two school board leaders.
The big picture: Members of Protecting Their Future — a committee hoping to remove TUHSD governing board president Leezah Sun and vice president Steven Chapman — filed recall applications against them in July.
- The campaign must collect at least 8,711 signatures for each from voters in the district by Nov. 7 to force a recall election.
State of play: Protecting Their Future argues that Sun and Chapman should be removed for several recent decisions.
- The district in January approved a deal to effectively loan $25 million to the cash-strapped Isaac School District through a deal in which it sold buildings to TUHSD and leased them back.
- TUHSD is leasing land to developer Dominium for an affordable housing project. Other issues, including the plans to build a new district office in Glendale at 99th and Missouri avenues, drew criticism as well.
Zoom in: Adan Morado, who chairs Protecting Their Future and filed the recall applications, told Axios the Isaac deal and the housing decision were the main impetus behind the decision to launch the recall campaign.
- "When have you heard of a district giving $25 million away to an insolvent school district? Never heard of that," Morado said. "And the housing, I paid my taxes so they invest in education, not in real estate development."
The intrigue: Recall campaigns are difficult and usually fall short. There have already been three failed recall attempts against other school board members in Maricopa County this year.
Yes, but: The Tolleson campaign has around two dozen paid petitioners collecting signatures for both recall petitions, in addition to a plethora of volunteers, according to Morado, a Democrat.
- "We're not going to have any problem getting enough," said Kim Owens, a Republican political consultant and former TUHSD board member who is assisting the recall campaign effort.
Caveat: Recall campaigns typically need to collect more than enough signatures than necessary to provide a cushion for invalid ones.
The other side: In a written statement to Axios, Chapman said the recall campaign "strings together a mixture of false and misleading statements meant to sabotage a shared vision for our district."
- He defended the cited lease deals, calling them "innovative solutions" which will generate a combined $140 million in the next few decades.
- Chapman said the campaign includes former administrators and board members whom he accused of putting adult needs over student interests.
- Sun declined to comment.
Flashback: This is not the first brush with political controversy for Sun, a former Democratic state legislator. Last year, she resigned from the Arizona House ahead of a scheduled expulsion vote over what the House Ethics Committee described as a "pattern of disorderly behavior."