The Ramona Unified School District has lost an appeal over a ruling that it violated the California Voting Rights Act and must pay the plaintiffs’ $878,849 in attorney fees.
The district’s appeal to the Fourth Appellate District Court was in response to a May 4, 2022 decision by San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer that the school district violated the voting rights act when it held an at-large school board election in November 2020. That was followed by Meyer’s decision that the district must pay the plaintiffs’ fees.
The appeals court ruled in favor of Meyer’s decision in its July 11 ruling.
“They found that Judge Meyer did everything correctly and affirmed the Superior Court’s ruling,” said attorney Kevin Shenkman, who filed the lawsuit against the district. “They also found that we in fact did provide substantial evidence to demonstrate that there was racially polarized voting in RUSD and as a result the Latino vote has been diluted.”
The plaintiffs are Southwest Voter Registration and Terry Maxson and Janie Ramos, both of Ramona.
Ramona Unified Superintendent Brian Thurman said that legal counsel petitioned for a rehearing of the appeal but the petition was denied.
“We’re considering next steps at this time,” Thurman said. “The board hasn’t made a decision yet to move forward but there are some circumstances we need to take it back to court.”
He declined to elaborate.
Thurman said at the time the appeal was filed that the “amount of money being demanded from our school district is a concern, especially since there was no change in circumstances or actions as a result of the case.” Thurman was not superintendent at the time the lawsuit was filed.
“It is significant and it’s going to come straight from our general fund,” he said earlier this month. “We’re trying to be the best stewards of the district’s dollars.”
If the district continues to fight the appeals court ruling, the attorney fees will go higher — anywhere from $1.1 million to $1.5 million, Shenkman said.
In the lawsuit filed against the district in October 2020, Shenkman alleged that the upcoming Nov. 3 at-large election violated the voting rights act and discriminated against Latinos by diluting their votes. He asked that a special election be held.
The election was supposed to be the first for Ramona Unified with the district split into five areas, so voters could elect trustees in their own geographic region.
But the election was changed over the summer because of procedural errors by both the district and the San Diego County Office of Education. Instead, voters had at-large ballots for the two incumbents, Daryn Drum and Dawn Perfect, and two challengers, John Rajcic and Joe Stupar. Drum and Perfect won the election.
While Meyer agreed with Shenkman in his ruling that the at-large election violated the voting rights act, he said the district’s mistake was unintentional and that officials made an appropriate remedy by moving forward with plans for a trustee-area election in November 2022, when three seats were open.
Theresa Grace, who was superintendent at the time the lawsuit was filed, said after the ruling that the district had worked to ensure that future board elections are by district trustee areas.
The board approved Trustee Area 1, identified on a map as Main Street Ramona and the Old Julian Highway area, in which 52 percent of eligible voters are Latino, in February 2022.
When the board had to fill an open seat after longtime board member Kim Lasley died in January, the candidates were from District 1. On March 21, the board appointed Maya Phillips to fill Lasley’s remaining term.
In the Nov. 8 election — the first with the trustee-area districts, Phillips won the Trustee Area 1 seat, incumbent Rodger Dohm the Area 5 seat and Dan Summers was uncontested for the Area 2 seat.
The district’s problems began after administrators failed to submit a waiver to the state Board of Education — a requirement to hold a trustee-area election — after the county’s approval. Grace said that getting the waiver through to the state board “fell through the cracks.” The district was coping with COVID-19 and preparing to reopen schools, he said.
District officials were notified in July 2020 by the county Office of Education that the state did not have Ramona Unified listed for trustee-area elections that year. By that time, four months before the election, it was too late to take the waiver matter before the state board, and the district had to revert to an at-large election, Grace said.
The county dropped the ball as well, officials said, by not following up on Ramona’s waiver status.
In April 2018, Shenkman got the trustee-area election process started by sending the district a letter demanding they comply with the California Voting Rights Act, which requires maintaining a fair election system that does not dilute the votes of minorities.
During a series of special meetings that began in September 2018, trustees of the 5,300-student district started to consider moving from an at-large to trustee-area style of election. Although some board members expressed frustration at making the change, they said at the time their hands were tied by the private law firm’s pending litigation.
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