SLO County school board votes on how to replace former trustee. Here are the next steps
The Lucia Mar Unified School District board of trustees voted during a special meeting Tuesday evening on how it will replace a trustee who recently died.
The South County school district had the option of either appointing or holding a special election for the new trustee.
During the special meeting — which began at about 9:15 p.m. after the board’s regularly scheduled meeting — the school board voted 5-1 to provisionally appoint a new school board member.
Trustee Dawn Meek was the sole dissenting vote. She said an election where more of the community had a say in who would sit on the board was warranted despite the financial cost.
The new member will replace Vern Dahl, who died in late October. He had been on the board since 2010.
“This is truly unfortunate and sad that we find ourselves going through this process at this point,” Lucia Mar Unified School District Superintendent Paul Fawcett said during Tuesday evening’s meeting.
However, Fawcett stressed the tight timeline the school district was under.
Within 60 days, Lucia Mar is required to either order a special election or make a provisional appointment to fill the board vacancy, according to the school board’s policy.
A special election would have cost the district about $350,000, according to the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
Trustees generally agreed that the cost was too high.
The special election would have been held in April or June 2022, and the seat will be up for election in November 2022.
Meek said that, in “normal times,” she would have voted for the provisional appointment.
“However, this is not normal times, and there’s lots of things that we’re going to have to decide on as a board that are going to last longer than $350,000,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of really, really important, life-long decisions that are going to be made that are going to affect our students not just for the time that they’re in Lucia Mar, but for their whole entire lives.”
She said topics including the impending student COVID-19 vaccine mandate and ethnic studies high school course requirement are matters which a board that was elected by the general public should decide on, not by a trustee who was appointed by a small number of people.
How will school district appoint new board member?
The school district will likely post a candidate application packet for the trustee position on its website by Nov. 22, according to a tentative timeline included in the board’s agenda packet for Tuesday’s meeting.
Candidates may then deliver their applications to the district office at 602 Orchard St., Arroyo Grande, CA 93420 or send them via email to marilyn.dwight@lmusd.org by 4 p.m. on Dec. 6.
Candidates must be at least 18 years old, a citizen of California and a resident of the Lucia Mar Unified School District, a registered voter and qualified to hold a civil office to apply, according to the district.
Between Dec. 7 and Dec. 12, an advisory committee — consisting of trustees Meek, Dee Santos and Colleen Martin — will review and screen the new trustee applications.
The names of the eligible candidates will then be posted on the district’s website, according to the tentative timeline.
The week of Dec. 13, the district will hold a special board meeting to interview the candidates and then select a new trustee.
Late trustee remembered during board meeting
Dahl’s nephew, Dave Friesen, spoke during Tuesday evening’s meeting about his uncle’s death.
“It’s been really tough for me, with everything ... how everything has gone down,” Friesen said during the meeting.
Friesen said Dahl was driving home from the San Francisco Bay area on Oct. 28 when he had a stroke while driving.
Dahl was able to pull his car over, Friesen said, but drove his car into a fence.
He was later found unconscious by California Highway Patrol officers and taken to a hospital in the Salinas area, Friesen said.
After two days on life support and extensive care, Dahl was found to have no activity in his brain, Friesen said.
Dahl was taken off life support on Saturday and later died, his nephew said.
A funeral for Dahl, which Friesen said “everybody is welcome” at, will be held on Nov. 8 at 2 p.m. He did not give any further details during the meeting.
Each of the board members, as well as Fawcett, paid tribute to Dahl during Tuesday’s meeting. They shared special memories they had of Dahl and spoke about his passion for working with the students and the community.
“I will miss his comments and his perspective as a board member,” trustee Chad Robertson said during Tuesday’s meeting. “I will also miss him and his friendship. There’s no doubt he had a tremendous heart for the students of this district.”
