Two NK Residents Plan Campaigns to Recall School Committee Members

Parent and longtime school volunteer Teri Ohs says that since William Mudge was elected to the North Kingstown School Committee last fall, he has not, as he promised during his campaign, worked to improve education.

“He has pursued his own agenda,” Ohs said this week. In her view, Mudge has been a rude, disruptive force at school committee meetings, about matters that are already settled.

Ohs says, “He’s the reason Superintendent Phil Thornton left” to take the . As a result, Ohs is pursuing the first steps to formally recall Mudge from his position via a special election.

Local activist Jim McGwin and head of the North Kingstown Taxpayers Organization says democracy is messy and that the School Committee, like Congress, is bound have disagreements and heated discussions. He says Mudge’s behavior falls within the bounds for an elected official and that a recall movement would be disruptive to the schools and education.

“We have an ," McGwin says. “He has to work on the and the 2013 budget.” Any recall effort, McGwin says, would be a huge distraction for the committee and the school system.

Nevertheless, says McGwin, if Ohs mounts an effort to recall Mudge, he will mount a campaign to recall School Committee members Larry Ceresi, Lynda Avanzato and Richard Welch.

While that would also be a distraction, says McGwin, recalling just one committee member “does not give voters a choice."

Town Clerk Jeannette Alyward says no one has filed the first step in the recall process, a declaration of intent. Under the terms of the procedure adopted in 2006, recalling an elected official “is obtainable but not easy,” Alyward explains.

First, a resident files a notice of intent signed by at least 50 registered voters. The Board of Canvassers has to verify the signatures from the voters’ roll within seven days.

Then the town has 10 days to print petitions that can be circulated to collect more voters’ signatures. Petitioners have 60 days to get valid signatures equal to 20 percent of the average number of voters in the
last two elections – at least 2,633 registered voters.

If that threshold is crossed, and those signatures verified, the town must hold a special election within 50 to 70 days – as long as it’s more than 90 days before or after a general election, and not in the recall subject's first or last six months in office.

At that special election, at least 40 percent of the average number of voters in the last two elections, or 5,265 voters, must turn out. And, of course, a majority must vote for removal for an official to be removed.

If a recall succeeds, the next top vote-getter or vote-getters take office – except that even the voters cannot remove more than three school committee members at once because that would jeopardize maintaining a quorum.

Ohs, who once led a successful lawsuit against the school committee for not following open meeting laws, says she intends to begin collecting signatures when summer vacation ends. “Not much gets done in August,” she said. “I need school to be in session."

She sees no reason why her campaign should disrupt schools or distract the School Committee. “It will never be on an agenda as a topic of discussion," she said.

McGwin said that, while situations such as the three North Providence city council members who were recently convicted of malfeasance would justify a recall, school committee disagreements do not rise
to that level.

But if Ohs’ recall movement “opens the Pandora’s box,” he will pursue his own recall effort. “It is a response,” he said.