The campaign to recall Temecula Valley Unified School District Board President Joseph Komrosky is narrowly winning, according to preliminary results from the June 4 special recall election.
Mr. Komrosky told The Epoch Times that hundreds of his “vote no” signs were stolen, defaced, and destroyed during the campaign, while Jeff Pack, spokesman for One Temecula Valley PAC, said hundreds of “yes” signs were also removed.
Both Mr. Komrosky and Mr. Pack said air tags or trackers were used on some of their signs and the incidents have been reported to police. They also both said their respective campaigns discouraged supporters from vandalizing, removing, or stealing signs.
“We had hundreds of signs stolen. They had hundreds stolen,” Mr. Pack said.
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who is running for governor, recently traveled from Oakland to Temecula to attend a rally in support of the recall.
Mr. Komrosky said the effort is due to his “conservative, traditional family values.”
“That is why they want me recalled. That’s it. It’s real simple,” he said. “They just want me out. They don’t care how they have to do it.”
But, Mr. Pack said the recall effort is also about fiscal responsibility.
“It was the money,” he said, citing the costs of dismissing school superintendent Jodi McClay and litigation. “The legal bills that we’re paying this year just either because of lawsuits or for advice ... is through the roof.”
The recall effort was sparked after Mr. Komrosky’s push for the district’s ban on teaching critical race theory (CRT) and its policy that bans all flags except the U.S. and state flags from being displayed, as well as a parental notification policy which requires parents to be informed if their child changes their gender identity at school.
CRT is an ideology that divides people into oppressors and oppressed based on race and purports that race is not a biological reality but a social construct.
The district has also banned books deemed to contain “pervasive profanity, obscenity, vulgarity, pornography and erotica.”
Regarding the books, Mr. Pack said the school board president shouldn’t be allowed to push his own religious views on all parents and students.
“Whether you agree with it or not or you think it’s moral or not doesn’t matter,” Mr. Pack said. “If you think something’s immoral, I may not. I was the type of parent that was like, ‘Read what you want and if you have questions, just talk to me about it,’ but some of these parents don’t want their kids to see any of it ... because of their religious beliefs.”
