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Joseph Barragan recall, Alvord Unified School District, California (2018)
| Alvord Unified School District recall |
|---|
 |
| Officeholders |
| Recall status |
| Recall election date |
| June 5, 2018 |
| See also |
| Recall overview Political recall efforts, 2018 Recalls in California California recall laws School board recalls Recall reports |
A recall election seeking to remove Joseph Barragan from his position as the nonpartisan Trustee Area 2 representative on the Alvord Unified School District Board of Education in California was approved by voters on June 5, 2018.[1] Lizeth Vega was elected to replace him.[2][3]
The Committee to Recall Barragan began the effort after Barragan allegedly posted comments on his Facebook page that the committee called racist. Barragan said he did not write the comments and that they came from copycat accounts that used his image. A police investigation into death threats against Barragan examined all posts sent from his account between January 1, 2017, and March 1, 2017. The officer in charge of the investigation said that in the course of that examination the police concluded Barragan had not made any racist comments. Recall supporters criticized the scope of the investigation.[4][5]
Barragan joined the other four members of the board when he was sworn into office on December 8, 2016. He filed to run in the general election scheduled for November 8, 2016, but the election was canceled due to lack of opposition. He was automatically appointed to the position for a four-year term.[4][6][7]
A board resolution to censure Barragan for reasons unrelated to the recall effort was withdrawn on June 8, 2017. The resolution said Barragan had violated board policy when he posted criticisms of district administrators and teacher salaries on social media. Barragan said he would have sued the district for violating his free speech rights if the board had passed the censure resolution.[8][9]
Recall vote
| Joseph Barragan, Trustee Area 2 Board Member, Alvord Unified School District | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
 Recall | 827 | 67.4% | ||
| Retain | 400 | 32.6% | ||
| Election results via: Riverside County Registrar of Voters, "Statewide Direct Primary Election June 5, 2018," accessed June 29, 2018 | ||||
| Barragan successor candidate, Trustee Area 2 Board Member, Alvord Unified School District | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Votes | Percentage | ||
| Lizeth Vega | 941 | 93.91% | ||
 Write-in votes | 61 | 6.09% | ||
| Election results via: Riverside County Registrar of Voters, "Statewide Direct Primary Election June 5, 2018," accessed June 29, 2018 | ||||
Recall supporters
The Committee to Recall Barragan called for his resignation in February 2017, when the Facebook posts were allegedly created.[10] When he did not step down, the group started the recall effort. The committee published the document to the left outlining the reasons for recall on the group's Twitter account on May 6, 2017.[11]
In one of the posts, Barragan allegedly wrote, “Life was better when we had slaves. They were actually tamed like animals.”[4] Another alleged post said he believed the United States should build “a wall like the one Israel has to keep Muslim’s out” to stop “illegals,” according to The Press Enterprise.[10]
Eva Amezola, a member of the Committee to Recall Barragan, said she had seen posts on Barragan's Facebook account that she described as racist going back to 2014.[12]
Gabriela Plascencia, an organizer of the recall effort and a counselor at the district's Loma Vista Middle School, said a number of district students and their families were residing in the country without legal permission. “There’s a lot of fear in our district,” said Plascencia. “He’s only adding to the fear, on top of bringing negative and hateful speech to our community.”[10]
After the posts were allegedly created, Alvord Unified Superintendent Sid Salazar released a statement saying, "The Alvord Unified School District officially condemns the inflammatory and offensive individual personal comments made by Mr. Barragan through his public use of social media."[13]
Leigh Hawkinson, president of the Alvord Educators Association, said the union supported the recall but was not leading it. The union donated more than half of the money the recall effort collected in 2017.[10][14]
“I don’t believe he’s qualified for the position. I don’t think he is a fair and equitable person, and I don’t believe he is doing the job that even the board policies say he should be doing. I’m not even talking about the racial comments,” said Hawkinson. “He attacks teachers. He says horrible things about teachers.”[14]
No tie was found between Barragan's account and the alleged posts in a police investigation that reviewed posts between January 1, 2017, and March 1, 2017. Recall supporters criticized the scope of the investigation. Hawkinson said the police did not have access to all of Barragan's social media accounts.[5]
Recall opponents
Barragan said he did not write the Facebook posts. He initially said his account had been hacked, but later said copycat accounts had been created using his image. “All these racial claims against me will be proved to be false,” Barragan said after he was served recall papers. An investigation by the Riverside Police Department found no link between the controversial posts and Barragan's account.[4][5][10]
At a board meeting on May 30, 2017, Scott Jones, a private investigator who volunteered to investigate the alleged Facebook posts, said his company had not found any racially inappropriate comments going back to September 2016. Jones said it was likely a fake Facebook account had been created.[12]
Barragan called himself a “gay Hispanic Republican” and said he did not hold racist views. He also said he thought the recall effort was politically motivated. “I attended Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, and two weeks later these charges were brought against me,” said Barragan. “The Riverside County Democratic party negatively attacked me on Facebook.”[4]
Barragan also said he believed the recall effort was started to “tarnish [his] reputation and slander [his] name.” According to The Highlander, Barragan started an investigation into possible "misuse of funds and unethical practices on the part of the superintendent’s office.[4]
In reaction to the Alvord Educators Association's support of the recall effort, Barragan said, "I did not seek endorsement nor was I bought by the teacher’s union, unlike the rest of the board who have received political contributions.” He also said the union had accused him of "interrupting student learning by making unannounced classroom visits," according to The Press-Enterprise.[4]
On May 19, 2017, Barragan said a fake account had been created under his name.[15] On his personal Facebook page, he said:
| “ | Fake account / Clone account was created under my name and pictures! Please do not respond to the friend requests sent out by this fake / clone account! Or the messages they have sent out!
If you can please take screenshots of the profile, messages and URL it would be greatly appreciated. It is utterly disgusting the individual(s) behind this would proceed to impersonate me and ruin my reputation. I have reason to believe that the individual(s) behind this attempt and the February 'racist' postings are related. As I continue with my position as a Governing Board Member on the Alvord Unified School District Board of Education I regularly come across unethical practices and corruption. These attempts will not derail me from doing the duties that were bestowed upon me and I will continue to shine a light on the injustices within Alvord USD.[16] |
” |
| —Joseph Barragan (2017)[15] | ||
Background
Police probe into death threats finds no link between Barragan's account and controversial posts
The Riverside Police Department announced in July 2017 that they found no link between Barragan's account and the alleged Facebook posts. The police investigation started after Barragan reported on February 2, 2017, that he had received two death threats through his district Facebook account. The death threats criticized Barragan's support of President Donald Trump (R) and said Barragan “deserves to be six feet under for going against your people,” according to Detective Jim Simons. Police were unable to determine who had sent the threats, but Simons said they concluded Barragan had not made any racist comments.[5]
The investigation into the posts was concluded after police reviewed every post sent from Barragan's account between January 1, 2017, and March 1, 2017. “I can tell you that I did not find any racist or derogatory posts that came from Joseph J. Barragan’s Alvord district Facebook account between those time periods,” said Simons.[5]
Barragan said he felt vindicated after the investigation concluded. “They targeted an innocent person and ruined their life,” said Barragan. “They sent people to follow me and they sent people to intimidate me. It’s ridiculous. It’s disgusting.”[5]
Supporters of the recall, however, questioned the scope of the investigation. “It does not exonerate him,” said district parent Miguel Ramos. “I believe he had old accounts and made these racist statements in the past.”[5]
Alvord Educators Association President Leigh Hawkinson said, “Because Barragan has so many social media accounts, they did not have access to all of them, I believe, and therefore didn’t have the correct information to investigate.”[5]
“If somebody is alleging that he had another account that I’m not aware of, is that possible? Yeah,” Simons said. “We didn’t look into it. We looked into the Facebook account where he received the threats.”[5]
The investigation found no evidence that Barragan's account had been hacked. Instead, Simons said he believed a fake account was created using variations of Barragan's name as well as avatar images to display his face. Simons said that flyers containing derogatory language were then circulated online to “trick people into thinking it was coming from him.”[5]
Barragan said a number of copycat accounts had been created online using his image. “I don’t have any other accounts,” said Barragan. “I think it’s just a witch hunt.”[5]
Censure resolution proposed
A board resolution to censure Barragan was proposed in May 2017. The reasons for censure were unrelated to the recall effort or to Barragan's alleged Facebook posts. Instead, the censure resolution said that Barragan had violated board policy and principles of “decorum, professionalism, decency and good stewardship of the district” when he posted criticisms of district administrators and teacher salaries on social media. The resolution said that Barragan had no authority to speak publicly for the board on labor negotiation issues. It also said that Barragan had made “unfounded and unproven allegations” against district spending practices.[8][12]
The vote on the censure resolution was planned for May 30, 2017, but it was delayed to June 8, 2017, after board member Carolyn Wilson could not make the meeting. Wilson also said she needed more time to review the resolution and discuss it with a district lawyer. “By me doing this, it’s not that I condone what Joseph does,” said Wilson. “I think it should be done properly.”[12]
On June 8, 2017, the board withdrew the censure resolution. “We have reasons for doing what we did,” said board President Art Kaspereen after the censure resolution was withdrawn. “A lot of them are legal issues.”[9]
When the censure resolution was first proposed, Barragan said in a statement that it was “a clear attempt to limit transparency and sweep problems that are occurring in the Alvord Unified School District under the rug.” He said his comments about the district on social media had contained information from documents obtained through the California Public Records Act.[12]
After the censure resolution was withdrawn, Barragan said he would have sued the district for violating his free speech rights if the board had passed the resolution. “The Facebook page isn’t a district-sponsored page, therefore I am legally allowed since it’s my personal page,” said Barragan. “The district has no ownership over it, therefore they have no rules or guidance over what I can and cannot do.”[9]
Board member Robert Schwandt, who proposed the censure resolution, said board members had been within their legal rights to censure Barragan. He said board members were trying to put their differences aside and improve relations among the board.[9]
Path to the ballot
- See also: Laws governing recall in California
The recall effort against Barragan could not be started until he was in office for 90 days. He became eligible to be recalled in March 2017.[4] The first notice of intent to recall Barragan was filed in May 2017, but it was rejected due to formatting errors. Recall supporters filed a second notice on June 29, 2017.[5]
To get the recall on the ballot, supporters of the effort had to collect 1,713 signatures from registered voters in the district's Trustee Area 2. They announced that they had turned in 2,125 signatures on December 14, 2017. The Riverside County Registrar of Voters verified 1,912 of those signatures on January 29, 2018, which met the requirements to call for a recall election. The district had 14 days to schedule the election.[17][18][5][10] At a special meeting on February 7, 2018, the Alvord Unified Board of Education voted to hold the recall election on June 5, 2018.[1]
About the district
The Alvord Unified School District is located in Riverside County in Southern California. The county seat is Riverside. Riverside County was home to an estimated 2,387,741 residents in 2016, according to the United States Census Bureau.[19] The district was the 77th-largest school district in the state in the 2014–2015 school year and served 19,390 students.[20]
Demographics
Riverside County underperformed compared to California as a whole in terms of higher education achievement between 2011 and 2015. The United States Census Bureau found that 20.9 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 31.4 percent of state residents. During that same time period, the median household income for Riverside County was $56,603, compared to $61,818 for the entire state. The percentage of people in poverty in the county was 16.2 percent, while it was 15.3 percent statewide.[19]
| Racial Demographics, 2015[19] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race | Riverside County (%) | California (%) | |
| White | 80.2 | 72.9 | |
| Black or African American | 7.1 | 6.5 | |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 1.9 | 1.7 | |
| Asian | 6.9 | 14.7 | |
| Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander | 0.4 | 0.5 | |
| Two or more races | 3.4 | 3.8 | |
| Hispanic or Latino | 47.9 | 38.8 | |
Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
2018 recall efforts
- See also: School board recalls
A total of 33 school board recall efforts nationwide were covered by Ballotpedia in 2018. They included 74 board members. Twelve recall elections were held in 2018. The school board recall success rate was 28.4%.
Of the 12 efforts that made it to the ballot in 2018, eight were approved and the 20 targeted members were removed from office. Another two recall elections were defeated, and the targeted members kept their seats. One effort saw a mix of results: three members retained their seats, while the fourth was removed from his. Another recall election was held after the board member resigned. Her replacement was elected through the recall. The chart below details the status of 2018 recall efforts by individual school board member.
See also
- Alvord Unified School District, California
- Alvord Unified School District elections (2018)
- Alvord Unified School District elections (2016)
- Alvord Unified School District elections (2014)
- Recall campaigns in California
- Political recall efforts, 2018
- School board recalls
External links
- Search Google News for this topic
- Alvord Unified School District
- Riverside County Registrar of Voters
- Committee to Recall Barragan Facebook page
- Vote No To Recall Barragan Facebook page
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Abbey Smith, "Phone communication with the District Office of the Alvord Unified School District," February 8, 2018
- ↑ Riverside County Registrar of Voters, "Contest/Candidate Proof List ," April 18, 2018
- ↑ Riverside County Registrar of Voters, "Statewide Direct Primary Election June 5, 2018: Unofficial Results," accessed June 6, 2018
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 The Highlander, "Riverside school board member under fire for racist social media posts," May 22, 2017
- ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 The Press-Enterprise, "Riverside-area trustee cleared in police probe of racist Facebook posts," July 14, 2017
- ↑ Riverside County Registrar of Voters, "Contest/Candidate Proof List ," September 14, 2016
- ↑ Alvord Unified School District, "Board of Education," accessed May 23, 2017
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 The Press-Enterprise, "Riverside-area school trustee accused of racist Facebook posts may be censured Tuesday," May 29, 2017
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 The Press-Enterprise, "No rebuke by colleagues for Riverside-area school trustee," June 9, 2017
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 The Press-Enterprise, "Residents aim to oust Riverside-area school trustee accused of racist Facebook posts," May 5, 2017
- ↑ Facebook, "RecallBarragan post from May 4, 2017," accessed May 23, 2017
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 The Press-Enterprise, "Possible rebuke of Alvord school board member delayed," May 30, 2017
- ↑ Alvord Unified School District, "A statement prepared by Dr. Salazar yesterday in response to public concerns received by the District." February 3, 2017
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 The Press-Enterprise, "Alvord schools trustee targeted for recall blasts teachers union," February 26, 2018
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Facebook, "Joseph J Barragan post from May 19, 2017," accessed May 23, 2017
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The Press-Enterprise, "Group submits signatures in effort to oust Alvord schools trustee Joseph Barragan," December 24, 2017
- ↑ Facebook, "RecallBarragan," January 29, 2018
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 United States Census Bureau, "QuickFacts: Riverside County, California," accessed May 23, 2017
- ↑ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, "Common Core of Data, file ccd_lea_052_1414_w_0216161a, 2014-2015," accessed November 16, 2016
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