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The effort to oust Temecula school board President Joseph Komrosky is winning, initial results of the Tuesday, June 4, recall election show.
Results posted at 8:20 p.m. show that 55.82% of voters wanted him ousted, while 44.18% wanted him to stay in office. The Riverside County Registrars Office reported that 6,832 ballots have been counted, almost all of those mail-in ballots. So far, the voter turnout is 31.7%.
Komrosky could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Jeff Pack, co-founder of One Temecula Valley PAC, which is leading the recall campaign, was pleased so far.
“You don’t have to win by a lot, you just have to win by one,” Pack said.
The group made a push in the past couple of weeks to encourage petition signers and other community members to vote in the recall, a tactic he believes contributed to the number of yes votes, Pack said.
Komrosky took his seat on the board in December 2022 as part of a Christian conservative majority but came under fire from critics who said he and the board were making irresponsible financial and policy decisions.
Komrosky, along with Jen Wiersma and Danny Gonzalez, drew the ire of critics with moves including a ban on critical race theory, approving a policy requiring parents to be told if their child identifies as transgender and starting a feud with Gov. Gavin Newsom over a social studies curriculum with materials that referenced LGBTQ civil rights leader Harvey Milk.
“Make no mistake about it, Joe Komrosky has earned the right to be recalled,” states a Tuesday Instagram post from One Temecula Valley PAC. “From day one, his unhinged, tyrannical mismanagement of our district has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and has spewed chaos across our district and communities. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”
Supporters of Komrosky, including the Inland Empire Family PAC that helped get the conservative trio elected, criticized recall supporters’ platform.
Parents “are tired of hearing about the false claims, personal attacks to livelihoods, unsuccessful lawsuits in response to common sense policies, and overall inability to represent the TVUSD community of teachers and parents in its entirety,” Inland Empire Family PAC said in a Monday, June 3, Instagram post. “Let’s put another title to Dr. Komrosky’s legacy: Twice Elected in 2 years and VOTE NO on this bad faith attempt to seize power again.”
One Temecula Valley PAC got enough signatures from voters in Komrosky’s Trustee Area 4 to force a recall election.
About 22,000 voters in Komrosky’s trustee area received mail-in ballots in May and only they could vote in the recall election. Area 4 includes locations between Temecula Parkway and Rancho California Road and extends into Temecula Valley Wine Country.
Ballots had one question: Should Komrosky be recalled? Yes or no were the only options.
If Komrosky is recalled, he must immediately leave his post. If the recall election fails, he would finish the remaining two years of his term, which ends in 2026.
In January, Riverside County officials said that they had verified 4,884 signatures for the petition to recall Komrosky. That’s 604 more than the minimum needed to force a recall election.
The effort to oust Komrosky and the other two members of the board majority began in June 2023. Gonzalez and Wiersma were also named in the notices of intent to recall. But Gonzalez resigned in December 2023 and moved to Texas. The recall effort against Wiersma could not gain enough signatures to move forward.
The recall will cost about $75,000, according to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters, which is overseeing the election. The Temecula Valley Unified School District is responsible for covering that price tag.
Both sides have collectively raised $143,000 as of May 18, campaign finance records show.
Komrosky and the Inland Empire Family PAC raised almost $120,000 combined, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.
One Temecula Valley PAC and a pro-recall committee raised roughly $24,000 between Jan. 1 and May 18, records show.
The pro- and anti-recall campaigns heated up recently.
The Family PAC gave $4,000 to Komrosky’s campaign, 412 Church Temecula Valley Pastor Tim Thompson, founder of the family PAC, said in a Tuesday text message.
“We also sent three separate persuasion text messages to roughly 16,000 voter’s cell phones … sent one “Get Out the Vote” text message to 9,000 Republicans, and one direct mail piece to roughly 15,500 likely voter households.”
Several political figures also were seen in Temecula in the weeks leading to the recall.
Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez, R-Rancho Santa Margarita; former state Sen. Melissa Melendez, of Lake Elsinore; and Temecula City Councilmember Jessica Alexander attended a community canvasing event over the weekend, Temecula Valley Parents & Teachers UNITED said in a Monday, June 3, Instagram post.
The group, who opposes the recall, looks to bring attention to “TVUSD’s woke agenda” and is not in support of the recall.
Mail-in ballots will be accepted for a week after the election as long as they are postmarked on or before Tuesday, June 4, and received by Tuesday, June 11.
Results are set to be certified on Thursday, June 20.
To see the latest results, visit voteinfo.net.
Staff writer Jeff Horseman contributed to this report.
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Courtesy : https://www.pressenterprise.com/2024/06/04/recall-of-temecula-school-board-president-joseph-komrosky-winning-early-results-show/