Date set for Marysville recall face-off

Published 9:00 pm Monday, December 22, 2003

MARYSVILLE — A judge will decide in early January whether there are grounds for a recall election against Marysville School Board members Helen Mount and Ron Young.

A Jan. 6 court date was set Monday for a hearing before Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Bowden.

Also Monday, county prosecutors sent recall paperwork to the court for review. The prosecutor’s office was required by state law to boil down the 10 pages from the original recall petition into a 200-word ballot measure that can be amended by a judge.

The judge will decide whether any of the allegations against Mount and Young, regardless of whether they are true or not, constitute misfeasance, malfeasance or a violation of their oaths of office.

The state’s recall law describes malfeasance as "an unlawful act" and misfeasance as "performance of duty in an improper manner."

If so, the judge would allow recall backers to try to gather enough signatures within 180 days to place the measure on a ballot — either in late spring or early fall.

The prosecutor’s role was to file the paperwork but, by law, it does not take a position either way, said Gordon Sivley, a deputy prosecuting attorney.

"We don’t do any verifications of whether anything is actually true or not," he said. "The prosecutors’ office is not actually making the charges. They are being made by the petitioners who initiated the process."

Marysville School District residents Lisa Griffith, Shannon Bartlett and Deborah Vincelette are making the recall allegations.

The recall campaign is one of many wrinkles in an acrimonious series of events within the 11,000-student district, which endured a 49-day teachers strike this fall — the longest in state history — and saw three incumbent school board members lose re-election bids in November.

Mount said Monday she had not heard about the court date nor had she seen the synopsis of allegations.

"I have left it in the attorney’s hands," she said.

Both board members have said they don’t believe they have done anything wrong.

"This recall is politics at its best and its worst," Young said. "They are shortchanging the election process. It’s not a popularity contest. We have been making the best decisions to help benefit the school district and the students that we can."

Doug Wartelle, an Everett lawyer representing the recall backers, couldn’t comment on the ballot proposal.

"I have not received the ballot synopsis," he said.

The original recall petition outlines a series of school board decisions, including a controversial Nov. 17 vote to extend Superintendent Linda Whitehead’s contract a third year to June of 2006.

Among other things, recall backers allege the board members: