Registrar approves recall petition

After six months of work and a false start along the way, a group seeking to recall three members of the Hesperia Unified School District school board has an officially approved petition ready for signing.

"I just picked up the approved petition," recall spokeswoman Lori Nielson said Friday morning. "It's going to print on Monday morning. And then we will be passing out the petitions."

This is actually the second attempt to get a petition to hold a recall election to remove Hardy Black, Robert Kirk and Lee Rogers from the school board. A first attempt, which began in July of this year, ended on October 22, when the group failed to turn in a revised draft of the petition back to the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters in time to meet a deadline.

Despite the setback, though, Nielson said she and her group never became disheartened.

"I think it's because the registrar of voters worked with us. We've been criticized 'you can't get a comma right,' but everything has to be right. We've just been working it and working it."

But now the next stage of the process can begin: The group has 120 days to collect approximately 6,919 signatures -- or 20 percent of the 34,596 registered voters living in the Hesperia Unified School District.

That means requiring gathering more signatures than voted for Lee Rogers, who received 5,946, and only 45 signatures fewer than were cast for Black on November 7, 2006. The signatures, if gathered, would amount to a little more than 85 percent of the votes cast for Kirk, the top vote getter, who picked up 8,057 votes.

"Everything's been approved, and that's the most important thing," Nielson said. "Now everything's going to be great. We have 120 days! We have a lot of people who are anxious and a lot of people who are excited."

The completed petitions must be turned in to the registrar of voters by April 7.

Beau Yarbrough can be reached at 956-7108 or at beau@hesperiastar.com.