Judge OKs recall petition against 3 Richland school officials. What comes next?
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Richland School Board Recall Effort
A high-profile group of voters filed to recall board members Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams after their controversial vote to make face masks optional.
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In about two weeks, a recall group will begin gathering signatures and campaigning for the recall of three Tri-Cities school board members.
A Superior Court judge on Wednesday found that most of the charges levied against three members on the Richland School Board were sufficient to move forward to collecting signatures in an attempt to put the issue on the ballot.
Judge Norma Rodriguez found that 5 charges each against Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams met the state’s standards for recall.
“I cannot consider the truth of these counts ... It’s just to whether these charges are properly and sufficiently supported, and that’s all we’re doing today,” Rodriguez told lawyers and the courtroom on Wednesday.
The Richland School Board Recall group now has six months to gather signatures of voters within the district — about 4,700-5,300 for each school board member — for their name to appear on the ballot.
That figure is 25% of the total votes cast in the elections that elected Williams, Bird and Byrd.
Under state law, signature gathering can begin on May 27.
The charges approved in the recall of Byrd, Bird and Williams are as follows:
One charge that alleged Bird violated some of his constituents’ “free speech rights by censoring and deleting comments on a social media page” was cut by the judge. The recall group had tried to convince the judge that Bird’s public-facing Facebook page was a “public forum.”
“The court is not persuaded that Mr. Bird had knowledge or acted with intent to violate the law being that the law in regards to this issue is novel,” Rodriguez’s order read.
“The court found factual basis to determine that it was a public forum based on the content and authority provided by petitioners, however this area is new territory and the court cannot find that there is a factual basis to form the element of knowledge,” the order continues.
Wednesday’s decision means the trio of board members will be responsible for covering their legal costs.
The school board last month voted to use school district funding to cover those costs, but only if the judge ruled in their favor.
On Thursday, Brian Brendel, one of the voters to file the petitions, told the Herald they are accepting donations to pay for campaigns. And they will announce in a couple weeks when they begin gathering signatures.
Appeal considered
Jerry Moberg, the attorney representing the school board members, said he was “disappointed by the judge’s ruling,” but respects the decision of the court.
“I just think they did what was appropriate under the circumstances and I’m disappointed we are where we are now, given they were acting in good faith. We’ll accept the court’s ruling. I respect and accept it, and we’ll look at what our options are from here,” he said.
He expects a decision on next steps by Thursday evening. They have the opportunity to appeal the ruling to the Washington State Supreme Court, but Moberg’s uncertain if that will be their decision moving forward.
“We anticipated this ruling,” Doug McKinley, an attorney representing the recall group, told the Tri-City Herald on Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s not something to be happy about to be honest. People would prefer that public officials do their jobs in a quiet and un-intrusive way. Obviously, the events that precipitated this included closing down the whole school district for two days, which was unfortunate,” he continued.
This story was originally published May 11, 2022 at 5:40 PM.
