This story has been updated.
The North East Independent School District Board of Trustees likely will remain down one member until a special election in May after months of deadlock over filling the seat vacated when Terri Williams died more than 100 days ago.
A heated debate Monday echoed one heard numerous times in recent months, with three trustees voting to leave the seat open and others vying to appoint one of the four finalists interviewed by the board in October.
“We could be facing several months of stalemate votes if this continues,” Trustee Sandy Hughey said, “which is very sad to me.”
Almost 63,000 residents in single-member District 2 in the southeast part of the school district have now gone almost four months without representation, while hours of board time has been spent debating how to fill the seat. Deadlock on school boards in other parts of the city have resulted in state intervention after months of failure to work together.
But Trustee Steve Hilliard brushed aside those concerns, predicting that the fractured board would be able to find consensus over the important issues in the months before the election.
Trustee David Beyer initiated the discussion at the meeting Monday and moved to appoint Nan Richie, one of four finalists interviewed in October.
“I thought this was important to bring back up again and to have an open discussion about it,” he said.
Trustees Diane Sciba Villarreal and Hilliard both pushed back, arguing that voters should have the chance to decide who is in the seat instead of an appointment by the board. Trustees initially voted to accept applicants for an appointment shortly after Williams died. The process deteriorated in subsequent meetings, however.
“We are a constitutional republic,” Villarreal said Monday. “That seat belongs to the people. It doesn’t belong to us.”
“This is where we are at, and this is where we are going to stay,” she later added.
Hilliard echoed that, adding that the focus should return to the children, with a special election in May allowing voters to decide the seat. He motioned to call that election as a symbolic move, since required election paperwork will be filed in January either way. The measure failed 3-3.
The decision not to fill the seat comes after a four-month long process in which trustees regularly disagreed on issues ranging from whether to fill the seat through an election or an appointment to how the interview process should occur.
An initial group of applicants were whittled down to four finalists, who were called back for a series of public interviews in October. The finalists interviewed were Jacqueline Klein, Richie, Rhonda Rowland and Tracie Shelton.
Nearly a month later, however, the board conducted business without taking any action on appointing one of those finalists.
Throughout the process, several trustees argued that Klein, who ran against Williams in the last election, should be appointed over other applicants, since she garnered the second-most votes, and engaged with voters. Villarreal repeated that Monday night.
Hughey refuted that claim, pointing to the voters who cast a ballot for other candidates.
“I feel that is disrespectful to those 62% that did not support [Klein],” she said. “So we have the option, we have the ability to put someone neutral in the position now, so that district two can have a voice for the next few months.”
Klein has garnered the most scrutiny over the course of the process, with her affiliations, social media posts and political backing all driving discussions in the board room and in the press.
Last week, KSAT reported on San Antonio police records that show that Klein was accused of spitting on an Uber driver and repeatedly kicking the door of his vehicle. She was detained and taken to a sobering unit, but was not charged according to the outlet.
Klein said in a statement Tuesday that she was intoxicated at the time of the incident in question but was not driving and was not arrested.
“I offer no excuse for that,” she said. “The police report found no evidence that I had committed any aggressive actions. Nonetheless, I apologize to all of the people who have shown confidence in me. This will not happen again.”
Both Klein and trustees Villarreal and Marsha Landry were supported by the San Antonio-based Parents United for Freedom Political Action Committee, part of a rising trend in PACs that have formed across the state in recent years amid the coronavirus pandemic, which put a spotlight on how schools are operated and what is taught in classrooms.
The San Antonio Report first reported on the PAC in 2022.
