Curt Stookey and Brian West recall, Winston-Dillard School District, Oregon (2021)
| Winston-Dillard School District recall |
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| Officeholders |
Brian West |
| Recall status |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2021 Recalls in Oregon Oregon recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
An effort to recall two of the five members of the Winston-Dillard School District Board of Directors in Oregon did not go to a vote in 2021. Recall petitions were not submitted by the deadline on December 22, 2021.[1]
The recall effort began in September 2021. Position 1 representative Curt Stookey and Position 5 representative Brian West were named in the recall petitions.[2][3]
The recall petitions were filed by fellow school board member Jasmine Geyer, the Position 2 representative on the board. She said she started it because neither Stookey nor West would vote to end a state mandate requiring mask-wearing in schools.[2] Both Stookey and West said that though they disagreed with the state's mandate, they were not willing to go against it.[2]
Stookey's and West's terms on the board were scheduled to expire on June 30, 2023.[3]
To read about other recall efforts related to the coronavirus and government responses to the pandemic, click here.
Recall supporters
Geyer said the recall effort was not personal.[2] "We need a board majority to try and fight these mandates," Geyer said. "That's the only way we can make change at the local level, is having a board majority. And neither of them are willing to do whatever it takes at the board level."[4]
On her Facebook page, Geyer said:[2]
| “ | No more saying our hands are tied. These are our kids and our tax dollars and we decide when the mandates are over. The freedoms to mask or not mask, vaccinate or not vaccinate were always ours so if you agree that these medical decisions are best left up to each individual please join your community in this recall effort so we can appoint board members who are able to take a stand in defending our kids from Kate Brown.[5] | ” |
"Nothing is ever going to happen if we wait for the governor to give us back something she didn't give us to begin with," Geyer said. "Nothing is going to happen if we wait for that."[4]
Recall opponents
In response to the recall effort, Stookey said there were risks for the school district to not follow the mandate, including losing insurance, losing the superintendent, and daily fines against schools and staff.[4] Stookey said, "I fully support our boards desire to self-govern locally. However, after meeting with the school district’s attorney, it is clear to me that opposing these temporary mandates would put our ultimate mission of educating our children at risk."[2]
West said he was disappointed by the recall effort. He said he would prefer that board members work through their issues. He said that if he had the option, he would personally make both masks and vaccines optional but that he was not willing to go against the state mandate.[2] "I am on the exact same side, but how we get there and what we're going to do to actually make a difference is only through the legal process and/or through the governor backing down. That's it," West said.[4]
"If we make rash decisions or we go against this mandate, and the governor decides to come down and bring OSP and shut the schools down and red tag them, and only have half the teachers want to show up, we can't run schools in a safe and efficient matter," West said. "And we have to stop forgetting the kids, because apparently along the way we forget the kids. And that's what this is the most important thing."[4]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in Oregon
The Douglas County Clerk's Office approved the recall petitions for circulation on September 24, 2021. To get the recall on the ballot, recall supporters would have had to collect 640 signatures per board member by December 22, 2021.[2]
Ballotpedia covered 35 coronavirus-related recall efforts against 94 officials in 2022, accounting for 13% of recalls that year. This is a decrease from both 2020 and 2021. COVID-related recalls accounted for 37% of all recall efforts in both 2020 and 2021. In 2020, there were 87 COVID-related recalls against 89 officials, and in 2021, there were 131 against 214 officials.
The chart below compares coronavirus-related recalls to recalls for all other reasons in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
2021 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
Ballotpedia tracked 92 school board recall efforts against 237 board members in 2021. Recall elections against 17 board members were held in 2021. The school board recall success rate was 0.42%.
The chart below details the status of 2021 recall efforts by individual school board member.
See also
- Winston-Dillard School District, Oregon
- Recall campaigns in Oregon
- Political recall efforts, 2021
- School board recalls
- States that allow school board recalls
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Abbey Smith, “Email communication with Douglas County Clerk Daniel J. Loomis," January 3, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 KQEN News Radio 1240, "RECALL EFFORT UNDERWAY IN WINSTON-DILLARD SCHOOL DISTRICT," September 29, 2021
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Winston-Dillard School District, "School Board Members," accessed October 11, 2021
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 KVAL 13, "Chair and Vice-Chair of Winston-Dillard School Board face recall," September 30, 2021
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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