It should come as no shock to anyone that the Orange Unified board majority is up to some funny business. Yesterday Democrat Melissa Taylor Smith pulled papers to run for area 3. This would not be that unusual except for the fact that Smith already holds a seat on the board in area 1. This signifies that incumbent Wes Poutsma will not be pulling papers to run, not that it would matter considering that he votes the same way that Smith votes.

I am looking at the bigger picture though and that is the result of Smith running in area 1. If she were to win in November it would create a vacancy in area 1. The way I see it this is a chance for the union controlled board members to appoint Democrat Florice Hoffman to the board without her having to actually get elected. I do not think that she would be able to win in an actual election considering she put up no fight when facing Republican Ed Royce.

If an actual election were to take place it is likely that Republican Dr. Alexia Deligianni would win the area 1 seat considering that she lives there and has great name identification. In the scenario I described above though she would not be able to do this because the area 1 trustee will likely be appointed and not elected. I recently spoke with Alexia Deligianni, and she appeared to have no interest in running in area 1 either this year or in 2010 when that seat is scheduled for an election. 

The board has done a number of controversial things recently on top of what they have done in the past. They have talked of putting another school bond on the November ballot despite losing in two prior elections. They have also recently gerrymandered redistricted the boundaries of the school district for what now appear to be obvious reasons. They also have given what has been considered a "golden handshake" (h/t Greater Orange Blog) deal to previous Superintendent Thomas Godley. I could go on but in the essence of time I will leave it at that for now. I have a feeling I will be posting a great deal about Orange Unified in the near future.