3 Richland school officials ask WA Supreme Court to toss recall attempt
READ MORE
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.
Expand All
The three Richland School Board members have officially filed an appeal to the Washington state Supreme Court hoping to overturn a ruling that a group wanting to recall them can begin gathering signatures.
A group is attempting to oust Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams over alleged violations to the Open Public Meetings Act and the Washington state’s mask mandate.
The effort stems from a rushed vote the board took in February to go “mask optional” at all schools across the Richland School District in violation of a state mandate.
On May 11, Benton County Superior Court Judge Norma Rodriguez ruled that five charges against the trio were OK to move forward in the recall process and met the state’s standard for recall.
The following day the three board members said they planned to appeal to the state’s highest court.
Public officials have a right under state law to request the Supreme Court directly and speedily review a determination from a lower court on a recall petition. Former Benton County Sheriff Jerry Hatcher did so unsuccessfully before being ousted by a vote of the people.
But Jerry Moberg, an attorney for the trio, said he’s confident they’ll get a favorable result from the high court.
“I’m confident in our legal position. I believe we have really strong legal arguments about the charges and that’s what the Supreme Court is going to have to review,” he told the Tri-City Herald this week.
Moberg said they’re considering filing motion for a speedy review of the case, but have not yet done so.
They previously had filed a motion in Benton County Superior Court for Judge Rodriguez to reconsider some of the charges based on evidence that better lays out a timeline of conversations between the elected officials. But Moberg said they haven’t yet received a response from Rodriguez on whether she’ll reconsider her decision.
Doug McKinley, an attorney representing the recall group, said in a response to the motion that the new evidence provided no new facts and that the request for fact finding from the defendants would be out of the court’s scope of considering recall.
What comes next in the timeline is up to the nine Supreme Court justices, Moberg said.
The high court will establish its own timeline, he said. But state law says the court must make a determination within 30 days of the Superior Court’s ruling, which would be June 10.
The recall group, which said its ready to begin collecting the 5,000 or so signatures needed to put each of the three board members names on the ballot, will have to wait to hear what the Supreme Court decides.
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 1:17 PM.
