Gary Munoz
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Gary Munoz represents the Trustee Area 4 seat on the Los Banos Unified School District school board in California. Munoz won the seat in the by-district general election on November 8, 2016.
Two weeks after the candidate filing period closed for this election, incumbent Tommy Jones was arrested on bribery charges. Though residents of Trustee Area 2 and the president of the Los Banos Teachers Association called for his resignation, Jones maintained his innocence and refused to step down.
After a special meeting was called to censure Jones in September 2016, the school board race was split into two camps: those supported by the teachers union and those supported by the Community Advocacy Coalition (CAC), a local advocacy group. Members of the CAC said the audience at the special meeting, which included some teachers, had expressed "hatred and racism" after not enough members attended to provide a quorum. The teachers union president said the anger expressed at the meeting had not had racial undertones and had only been directed at the board members' absence. In reaction to the accusations of racism, CAC-backed candidates Jones, Munoz, and Carole Duffy refused to attend a candidate forum in October 2016. Two candidates backed by the teachers union—Megan Goin-Soares and Margaret Benton—won election to the board. CAC-supported Munoz won election to the Trustee Area 4 seat.[1]
Jones was not the only board member to get arrested in 2016. Falasco was arrested for drug possession in April 2016 and charged with two misdemeanors. He said he would fight the charges against him.
Outside of the arrests of two board members, a civil lawsuit was filed against the district, seeking to change the district's training and monitoring of teachers after a student was allegedly molested by two teachers. The district was also admonished in July 2016 when a civil grand jury found it had not followed protocol when it built the new Creekside Junior High School.
Elections
2016
Three of the seven seats on the Los Banos Unified School District Board of Education were up for by-district general election on November 8, 2016. In his bid for re-election to the Trustee Area 2 seat, incumbent and former mayor Tommy Jones, who was arrested on bribery charges at the end of August 2016, was defeated by challenger Megan Goin-Soares. Trustee Area 4 incumbent and attorney Dominic Falasco was also arrested in 2016 and charged with two counts of misdemeanor drug possession. He said he would fight the charges against him. Falasco was defeated by challenger Gary Munoz in the election. The Trustee Area 6 race featured incumbent Carole Duffy and challenger Margaret Benton. Benton defeated Duffy to take the seat.[2][1]
Results
| Los Banos Unified School District, Trustee Area 4 General Election, 4-year term, 2016 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Gary Munoz |
49.89% | 660 |
| Dominic Falasco Incumbent | 49.51% | 655 |
| Write-in votes | 0.6% | 8 |
| Total Votes | 1,323 | |
| Source: Los Banos Enterprise, "Falasco loses recount, Munoz keeps Los Banos school board seat," December 16, 2016 | ||
Funding
Munoz reported no contributions or expenditures to the Merced County Elections Office in the election.[3]
Endorsements
Munoz was endorsed by the Community Advocacy Coalition (CAC).[4]
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Gary Munoz Los Banos Unified School District. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Merced County, "November 8, 2016 General Election Unofficial Results," accessed December 12, 2016
- ↑ Merced County Registrar of Voters, "2016 Presidential General- November 8: Qualified School District Candidates," accessed August 15, 2016
- ↑ Merced County Elections Office, "Campaign Docs Retrieval: Search By Election," accessed February 24, 2017
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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| 2016 Los Banos Unified School District Elections | |
| Merced County, California | |
| Election date: | November 8, 2016 |
| Candidates: | Trustee Area 2: • Incumbent, Tommy Jones • Megan Goin-Soares Trustee Area 4: • Incumbent, Dominic Falasco • Gary Munoz Trustee Area 6: • Incumbent, Carole Duffy • Margaret Benton |
| Important information: | What was at stake? • Additional elections on the ballot • Key deadlines |
