On Thursday, July 12, the Mingus Union High School District Governing Board, along with individual taxpayers in the district, filed suit in Yavapai Superior Court challenging the legality of a planned vote on school district consolidation on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
The board had voted unanimously on June 6 to oppose consolidating Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District and MUHSD, and on June 20 to retain two law firms, Gust Rosenfeld and Ballard Spahr, for the potential of this lawsuit.
According to a press release, the suit alleges that the petitioners who had gotten the issue on to the November ballot, Committee for Better Upper Verde Valley Schools 2018, did not have the legal authority to do so. It alleges that the statute authorizing the consolidation vote, Arizona Revised Statute §15- 459(B)(7) — passed by the Arizona State Legislature as Senate Bill 1254 in May — does not go into effect until Friday, Aug. 3, after petitions were presented to the Yavapai County Schools Superintendent on June 4.
The suit further claims that the petitions collected by consolidation proponents were unlawful for mischaracterizing the proposed consolidation, and that the law violates the Arizona constitution, which prevents laws specially targeting specific jurisdictions.
SB 1254 changes the rules governing school district consolidation, allowing for a public vote after only one district votes in favor of consolidation, instead of needing unanimous agreement from all districts, as required before SB 1254. The lawsuit alleges the language of the bill, which was designed in a way that does not apply to some of the larger school districts in Arizona’s bigger cities, violates requirements that bills not target specific communities.
COCSD had previously voted in favor of consolidation on Dec. 4, 2017, while Clarkdale-Jerome School District, the third district that would be included in a potential consolidation, voted against it in May 2017.
“This lawsuit seeks to prevent an unlawful school consolidation question from appearing on the Nov. 6, 2018 ballot,” MUHSD Governing Board President Anita Glazar said. “After months of careful study and review, our board voted unanimously to reject the proposed consolidation at issue in this lawsuit because it is not in the best interests of our students and would waste taxpayer money.
“We are urging the court to reject this unconstitutional effort to bypass the proven and tested procedure for unifying schools in Arizona,” Glazar continued. “I am confident the court will strike this question from the ballot after carefully reviewing the law.”
Phil Terbell, a leader of the pro-consolidation efforts, said he wanted to work with the school districts.
“We’ve tried to do everything according to proper protocol,” Terbell said. “We provided the petitions so that voters could review and look at the information to pass an opinion. I don’t understand why Mingus doesn’t want the voters to pass an opinion.
“They seem to trust the voters to pass their override elections,” Terbell continued. “They trust the voters to pass their school bond issues, but they don’t trust the voters to look at the information provided and determine whether it would be beneficial for a consolidation. I feel it’s unfortunate that Mingus’ board doesn’t trust the voters enough to put it in their hands.”
The MUHSD board has stated information provided by the pro-consolidation organizers has assumed financial savings from the move that would not appear. MUHSD commissioned a study in the spring that found that consolidation could cost the school district millions due to changes in teacher contracts and the tax structure of the school districts.
“I believe that through the process of studying the issue like we did in the committee, we could not demonstrate any real gain on the part of the students,” said Mike Wescott, a Clarkdale resident and former MUHS science teacher who, along with recent Mingus graduate Cassidy Thagart and parent Cyndi Ricci, serve as the three plaintiffs joining with the school board in the suit.
“We couldn’t identify any real student benefit in any objective, scientific way,” Wescott said. “The data showed the potential for student harm as a result of the consolidation.”
Terbell said he doubts the MUHSD study.
“If there’s anybody wasting taxpayer money it’s them, hiring attorneys to review and draft these lawsuits,” Terbell said. “We’re already scheduled to be in the courtroom, so there’s additional attorney expenses to be encumbered. It just seems like further complications to an issue that’s best left to the voters.”
“We’re all about the right to vote and making sure people get to vote when appropriate, but it’s also important to us that authorities follow the rules in elections,” said Joe Kanefield, a partner at Ballard Spahr who is serving as an attorney on behalf of the plaintiffs. “We’re not trying to deprive anyone the right to vote. We’re trying to hold accountable people who are holding an election without authority.”
The defendants listed are Yavapai County School Superintendent Tim Carter, County Recorder Leslie Hoffman, County Elections Director Lynn Constabile, the County Board of Supervisors and the Committee for Better Upper Verde Valley Schools 2018.
The county will not fight for the election, leaving that to the Committee for Better Upper Verde Valley Schools 2018. According to Carter, the county intends to continue preparing for the election, but will comply with whatever findings the court makes.
“We are proceeding with having a November election unless the court tells us otherwise,” Carter said. “We have a timeframe between now and the end of the month to have everything ready to have a pamphlet ready.”
A hearing on the lawsuit will occur at the Yavapai Superior Court in Camp Verde on Tuesday, July 31. Public comment on the coming vote can be submitted to the Yavapai County Superintendent’s office before Thursday, July 26.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
