CUSD Recall Petitions Approved
News Release, Aug 22, 2007

Trustees Sheila Benecke and Marlene Draper will face recall

The CUSD Recall Committee received confirmation the Orange County Registrar of Voters approved the Petition to Recall Capistrano Unified School District Trustees Sheila Benecke and Marlene Draper. Recall proponents may now formally begin the process of collecting signatures from 10 percent of the registered voters in the Capistrano Unified School District to qualify the recall election. They have 160 days to circulate and submit petitions.

Grounds for the recall read as follows:

You have permitted a culture of corruption to infect our school district.

You permitted district personnel to use scarce district resources to create unlawful lists of your political “enemies” – including children. You engaged in illegal closed-session meetings where district business was conducted in secret. You and your staff repeatedly provided false information to the public regarding district finances. You failed to effectively control your staff – even giving your former superintendent (now indicted for multiple felonies) a standing ovation and lucrative retirement package just hours after police investigators armed with search warrants raided his office.

You grossly mismanaged district finances.

You are recklessly spending $52,000,000 on an administration building and over $140,000,000 for a single high school next to a dump – while our schools are in dire need of repairs and students are crammed into substandard portable classrooms with non-functioning restrooms. Your reckless deficit spending has created a self-inflicted, multi-million dollar budget crisis that has put our children at risk and resulted in massive program cutbacks – overcrowding classrooms and severely diminishing the quality of education.

You have arrogantly disregarded the public by repeatedly ignoring problems until they become crises.

You have broken the public’s trust.

Petitions may be obtained by contacting the CUSD Recall Committee Website at www.cusdrecall.com.