I'm sure you've heard either here or here that William S. Hart District board member Chris Fall has resigned due to a conflict of interest arising from a consulting job.
Fall sold his waste disposal company before launching his political career, but because he's still a consultant to the company that bought his company and that company has a soon-to-expire contract with the Hart District, that presented a conflict under Government Code Section 1090. The means that the board can't contract with a company if a board member has a role with that company. According the the Attorney General, it's not enough to recuse yourself.
He had to resign his consulting job or his board seat. He chose the latter, but it's just as well. A just-resigned consultant on a board that was about to consider a big contract with his ex-employer wouldn't have looked very good, either. In time, he'll get this all sorted out, and I think we'll see him running for something sooner or later.
But here's the thing: Fall isn't just the newly-appointed board member, he's also running in November and just the three incumbents filed to run. There are no challengers, so there will be no election.
A matter of days
August 9th was the last day that Fall could have withdrawn his nomination. If he had withdrawn by then, there would have been a one-week deadline extension for people to file to run in the election. He's still a "candidate."
August 9th was the last day that Fall could have withdrawn his nomination. If he had withdrawn by then, there would have been a one-week deadline extension for people to file to run in the election. He's still a "candidate."
You may recall Mike McGrath's too-late exit from the 2009 NSD election. McGrath dropped out of the race months before the election yet still managed to finish 1st in a field of five. But unlike McGrath's election, there are no challengers this year, just the three incumbents, so Fall has already won.
We essentially have two vacancies: the vacancy right now that can't be filled because it's too close (< 4 months) to the end of Fall's term, and the vacancy that will occur when he declines the new term. Only at that point may the Hart board make a move towards filling the seat.
As far as I can tell, the Hart board won't have to wait until November to get moving on filling the seat. Because only the three incumbents filed for the election, the board can now go ahead and make it official (Education Code 5326). I suppose the way it works is they'll appoint Fall, Messina and Jensen to a new term and Fall either declines or resigns right away.
The board can either appoint a replacement or call for a special election. Special elections are expensive for the district, so they'll likely look to appoint a replacement.