Early returns favor recall of Capistrano school board members
Sue Palazzo and Ken Maddox appear poised to replace Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke.
With the apparent recall Tuesday night of two school trustees in South Orange County, a group of parents, politicians and gadflies were on their way to claiming their greatest in a series of recent victories: control of the embattled 50,000-student Capistrano Unified School District.
Early returns were running about 72% in favor of recalling Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke, who between them have 36 years of experience on the board, and replacing them with substitute teacher Sue Palazzo and termed-out Assemblyman Ken Maddox.
Tuesday's special election was expected to cost the district more than $800,000 at a time when the district is grappling with millions of dollars of proposed state budget cuts. Draper's and Benecke's terms expire in November, and both have said they do not plan to run.
The recall campaign was the latest controversy to dog the district.
Most of the district's 56 schools are high-performing, but parents in the 195-acre swath of southern Orange County have in recent years loudly protested.
Among their concerns: the near closure of three elementary schools, the location of a new high school, attendance boundary changes and the construction of a $35-million administration complex while hundreds of classes were being taught in aging trailers.
seema.mehta@latimes.com
Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.
