Switch to voting by trustee areas nearly complete in Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District

Approvals from two more agencies are needed before the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District – also including students from portions of Fullerton, Brea and Anaheim – switches to electing trustees from five specific areas rather than the current district-wide system.

The district's goal is to have all approvals in place by the end of March to allow plenty of time for potential candidates to make plans before the county Registrar of Voters begins accepting nomination papers for open trustee positions in mid-July.

One approval must come from the 11-member Orange County Committee on School District Organization, expected at a January meeting. Placentia-Yorba Linda trustee Karin Freeman is the committee's vice chairperson.

The other approval needed is from the California Board of Education and is in the form of a waiver from a requirement that a trustee area election process and establishment of trustee areas be approved by district voters. Action could come at the board's March 14-15 meeting.

Two positions, now held by Freeman and Carrie Buck, will appear on the November ballot. If the trustee area system receives the final approvals, candidates must reside in the area they seek to represent, with ballots cast by registered voters living in the area.

The Placentia-Yorba Linda trustees adopted five voting areas on a unanimous vote at their November meeting. Trustee areas 4 and 5 are scheduled for the Nov. 6 ballot, with areas 1, 2 and 3 slated for the 2020 ballot.

Buck lives in area 5, while Freeman resides in area 4. Both are Yorba Linda residents. Carol Downey, a Placentia resident, and Eric Padget, a Yorba Linda resident, both reside in area 1, while Judi Carmona lives in area 3. No incumbent trustee currently lives in area 2.

Portions of Yorba Linda, Placentia and Anaheim are in four of the areas, parts of Fullerton in two areas and the district's small portion of Brea is fully contained in one area. Each trustee area has attendance areas from two or more high schools within the trustee area boundaries.

All school attendance areas remain as is, not affected by the creation of trustee areas.

Population ranges from 31,164 in area 2 to 32,357 in area 3, based on the 2010 census, and voter registration ranges from 8,115 in area 2 to 20,790 in area 3, based on November 2014 figures. Language fluency, described as “speaks English less than very well,” ranges from 8 percent in areas 3 and 4 to 29 percent in area 2, based on a federal census bureau survey.

Freeman is the district's longest-serving trustee, first elected in 1989. Downey has served since 2000, Padget since 2008, with Buck and Carmona first elected in 2010. Only trustee not from Yorba Linda or Placentia has been Robert Harkness of Anaheim in the 1960s-70s.

The change from at-large voting to trustee areas is partly due to potential costly litigation for violating the state's Voting Rights Act of 2001.