Mobilizing for Recall in Westminster

A group of Westminster mothers and teachers, eager foot soldiers in the grass-roots battle to recall school district trustees Judy Ahrens and Blossie Marquez-Woodcock, clustered around Mary Mangold's kitchen counter.

Pushing aside a plate of homemade frosted cookies, they pored over computerized lists of registered voters, consulted neighborhood maps and talked strategy for getting at least 7,200 voters to sign petitions to put the recall on the November ballot.As the women grabbed their clipboards, Mangold, who lives just a block away from Ahrens, warned that, on these streets, some doors were sure to be shut in their faces.

"I've sold Girl Scout cookies in this neighborhood for four years," Lisa Mathews said confidently. "People will open their doors for me."

Tensions are still simmering in the Westminster School District, weeks after resolution of a political ruckus. The turmoil began when Ahrens, Marquez-Woodcock and trustee Helena Rutkowski, citing religious beliefs, took a stand against the gender language in a state antidiscrimination law -- a move that threatened to cost the district millions of dollars in state funding.

Trustees eventually adopted antidiscrimination language acceptable to the state, but parents and teachers are still pursuing a recall of Ahrens and Marquez-Woodcock. (Rutkowski, whose term expires in November, is not targeted.)

Recall proponents say it's not a one-issue campaign over the so-called gender debate, but reflects a list of complaints they have with the trustees' voting patterns.

In fact, they are downplaying the saga that erupted over the gender law and which left the small, usually tranquil, Orange County district reeling.

They acknowledge that the fight over the gender law polarized the community, with some voters rallying to the trustees' support. So opponents say their best chance of maintaining momentum against the trustees is in portraying them as out of touch with the community -- a claim Ahrens and Marquez-Woodcock vigorously deny.

"The gender issue was such an emotional one for people, and we're not going to change anyone's mind on it," said Louise MacIntyre, a parent and special education caseworker for the district who is heading the recall effort. "It brought all this to the surface, but it has come and gone. The issue now is: What are they going to be voting on in the future?"