Two members of the Orange County Board of Training, dealing with separate authorized challenges that might push them off the board, are seeing their instances transfer in doubtlessly completely different instructions.
An Orange County Superior Courtroom decide on Monday held off issuing a ultimate ruling in a case that questions the legality of the style wherein Tim Shaw was appointed to his seat as a trustee on the Orange County Board of Training. The choice by Decide Martha Gooding means her tentative ruling of March 4 — to disclaim a preliminary injunction in Shaw’s case — can stand, at the very least briefly.
Final 12 months, Shaw stepped away from the OCBE whereas dealing with a doable conflict-of-interest lawsuit as a result of, on the time, he concurrently held spots on the college board and on the La Habra Metropolis Council. He ultimately resigned the town job and was later re-appointed to the OCBE.
In the meantime, one other OCBE member, Beckie Gomez, is dealing with the same authorized problem, as a result of she sits on each the college board and the Tustin Metropolis Council.
Final week, Gomez was served throughout a board assembly with authorized paperwork that query whether or not she unlawfully holds the publish as a result of “upon taking workplace on the Metropolis Council, she forfeited her place on the County Board of Training.”
That very same query, and the specter of authorized motion that got here with it, prompted Shaw to resign his elected seat on the OCBE final November.
On the time, California’s legal professional normal gave the green-light to county resident Melissa Louden to sue Shaw over his proper to carry the OCBE publish.
Confronted with the legal professional normal’s choice, Shaw stated he didn’t need to tackle the burden of combating a lawsuit and stepped down from the OCBE, citing a rule that required him to stay in his most just lately elected publish, which at the moment was his job on the town council. His choice, nonetheless, was to stick with the OCBE, the place he’s a part of a conservative majority pushing conservative beliefs.
Shaw resigned from the La Habra Metropolis Council on Dec. 21 and, later that day, was re-appointed to the college board on a 3-1 vote by the opposite trustees. He beat out six different candidates for the job throughout a session that felt pre-ordained to favor Shaw.
Sean Michael Wright, greatest identified for his work with the homeless, filed a lawsuit in opposition to OCBE over Shaw’s appointment, citing a state regulation that prohibits a board from appointing somebody who has resigned from that very same place.
On Monday, an legal professional for Wright informed the decide that Shaw’s re-appointment to OCBE was “void on its face.”
Shaw declined to remark Monday.
Gomez is dealing with a authorized problem from Santa Ana resident Mike Tardif. Arguments in his software to the legal professional normal mirrored the arguments posed by Louden in opposition to Shaw, and cited that case.
Gomez additionally declined to remark.