The Capistrano Unified School District Board of Trustees voted yesterday hire an attorney in an attempt to postpone a ballot initiative from the June to November elections.

Nobody likes hiring an attorney, least of all a cash-strapped school district like CUSD. But the unreasonable of initiative supporters leaves them little choice. A June vote on the initiative will cost the district $400,000-$500,000, while scheduling it a few months later in November will cost just $8,500.

The initiative in question would change how CUSD elects its seven trustees. Currently, they represent areas, but are voted on district wide. Under the proposed initiative, trustee would only be elected by residents of the areas they represent.

One can make strong arguments for that approach. It is very expensive to communicate with CUSD's 215,000 voters. Unless a candidate has financial backing from school district unions, sufficient personal wealth or is riding the headwind of a mass grassroots revolt, it is very, very difficult for the average citizen to win election in an electorate of that size.

Switching to a vote-by-district system puts winning a school board seat within reach of a wider swath of CUSD residents, because there are fewer voters with which to communicate.

That said, there are no compelling policy reasons to hold it June, instead of November. None. Quite the opposite. This is a district that just doesn't have any money. Spending half-a-million on an election when you hold it for a fraction of that amount by simply waiting four months makes absolutely no sense.

Unless...one's objective isn't opening school board elections to to greater citizen participation, but is instead to remove the current trustees.

The flip side of voting on the initiative in June, is that the trustee election in November -- when three incumbents are on the ballot -- will conducted on the new vote-by-district basis. That, in turn, makes it easier for the CUSD teachers union -- which is waging war on the CUSD Board of Trustees -- to divide and conquer the trustees going forward. Since it will cost less for the union to try and pick-off trustees who don't want to play ball, it heightens the incentive for the less-resolute, conflict-averse trustees to go-along with union demands.

It's beyond ironic that the same folks pushing to needlessly spend $500,000 to hold an election four months earlier than necessary, are also screaming about the cuts the district has had to make. If initiative backers were truly concerned about cuts, they would agree to postpone the initiative to November. After all, what is lost -- other than an opportunity to adnace the union's political agenda?

To employ the rhetoric used by such activists, "How many teachers could you hire with that $500,000?"