Exclusive: 18,780+ signatures delivered to oust 3 Richland school officials. What’s next?

A group of Richland residents delivered three boxes of petitions to the Benton County Voting Center on Tuesday afternoon in their effort to oust three school board members.

The 18,788 signatures were gathered over the last 75 days as part of a Richland School Board Recall campaign to remove Semi Bird, Audra Byrd and Kari Williams from office.

Brian Brendel, Brad Rew, Anthony Peurrung and others with the recall campaign group are trying to remove them after the board’s surprise vote last year to go “mask optional” in schools and defy the state’s mask law during the COVID pandemic.

“We can’t have this type of reckless behavior,” Rew told the Tri-City Herald on Tuesday “This is not good when it comes to recruiting teachers and giving our kids the best education we possibly can. You can’t do that when you have leaders acting so inappropriately.”

He said he was pleased with the support of the community and believes they will succeed in replacing the three members.

Each board member faces three recall charges alleging their actions:

• Violated Washington’s Open Public Meetings Act by taking final action on a matter not included on a published meeting agenda.

• Violated state law on masking at the time, exceeding their powers and responsibilities as school board members.

• Violated district policies and procedures by failing to assure compliance with laws and policies.

Opponents of the recall say the action is frivolous and expensive, and that the charges levied against the school board members don’t hold merit.

They maintain the mask mandate was not a law and was causing harm to children, says the Resist the Recall campaign. Bird, who’s planning to run for governor in 2024, previously called the recall charges “spiteful and revengeful.”

Last week, the Washington state Supreme Court issued its written opinion that allowed the recall process to continue. The unanimous decision said despite the board members saying they did not think that their vote violated the law, the evidence shows they “were aware that the mask mandate carried the force of the law — and that they were knowingly defying a law with which they disagreed.”

What’s next?

Benton County Elections Office officials must now verify the signatures and if there are enough, the issue will be put on a ballot for voters to decide. Voters then would vote individually on each of the three.

Verification and canvassing of the signature forms — the vigorous process of going line-by-line, page-by-page checking each name, signature, date of birth and matching it with their voter registration records — is expected to take 10 days or more.

Election officials plan to start verification on May 11, due to state law.

Benton County Auditor Brenda Chilton said her employees are “well within the window” to check signatures to meet the deadline for the Aug. 1 primary ballot.

“The bar for recalling an elected official is generally high because you shouldn’t be able to overturn the vote of the people,” Chilton said. “These individuals were duly elected by a vote of the people, and it shouldn’t be easy to overturn the vote.”

The verification process will be open to the public. Visitors can stop by 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, to watch staff verify signatures over a monitor at the Voting Center, 2618 N. Columbia Center Blvd.

The Elections Center will have six workers verifying signatures, with two working on each set at the same time.

Recall signatures

Each elected official requires his or her own set of signatures to be verified to move on to the next stage of the process. Here’s how many were delivered for each:

• Audra Byrd: 6,299

• Semi Bird: 6,270

• Kari Williams: 6,219

The recall campaign needed to collect the signatures of 25% of the total number of votes cast in the last election that each school board member was involved in.

In the end, the campaign collected an additional 900-1,500 signatures for each school board member to account for any problem signatures.

Holding a recall during the primary election will cost the Richland School District about $75,000 to $100,000.

But two of the three school board members — Williams and Bird — are already up for reelection this fall anyway, so it’s possible they theoretically could be recalled and then re-elected on the same ballot if they file for office.

Recall elections are rare and often don’t get this far along in the process.

In 2021, then Sheriff Jerry Hatcher became the first elected official in Benton County to ever be recalled by the voters, and possibly the first Washington state sheriff, too.

COVID frustrations

Kari Williams, a longtime school district volunteer with a teaching background, was elected in 2019 to the Richland School Board during a time when the district was marred with budgetary concerns and controversies finding a new superintendent. She said then that she wanted to add a teacher’s voice to the board.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parent and voter frustration boiled over pandemic-era health mandates requiring students wear masks and teachers get vaccinated. Semi Bird and Audra Byrd rode into office on a platform of mask denialism and frustration aimed at the state.

But state officials had repeatedly told districts that they risked losing funds from the state if they didn’t follow the governor’s proclamations around COVID.

If the recall is in the affirmative — if 50%, plus 1, vote in favor of removing any of the school board members from office — then they will have until the day that Chilton certifies the election results to vacate their office.

However, being recalled would not preclude them from running for office again, either later this year or in the future.

School board members will get to keep their seat if the recall election fails to get a clear majority of voters in support of removing them from office.

This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.