Schools

Stultz Recall Faces Long Road

The school board member has nearly five months to ride out the wrath over the calendar before the real effort can even begin.

It didn’t take long for proponents of the balanced school calendar to declare their desire to unseat new member Tim Stultz of Post 2—they showed up at with recall signs.

But the people behind those signs and online efforts such as @RecallTimStultz shouldn’t expect immediate satisfaction against the board members who voted 4-3 to adopt a more traditional school calendar that begins Aug. 15.

The road to recall is a “long and complicated process,” said Janine Eveler, Cobb County’s elections director.

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First, Georgia law grants new officeholders a 180-day grace period. That means Stultz and fellow newcomers Kathleen Angelucci of Post 4 and Scott Sweeney of Post 6, who joined board Chairwoman Alison Bartlett of Post 7 in forming the calendar majority, aren’t subject to recall for nearly five more months.

The three , so they’re safe until July 5.

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If tempers haven’t cooled before the summer swelter settles in, Stultz’s foes can begin the recall process, Eveler said, but they face a significant legal hurdle.

Georgia law sets specific grounds for recall involving misconduct or malfeasance, and a candidate can challenge a recall in court for not meeting those standards, she said. “Generally speaking, conducting a vote in a meeting, as long as it’s done with proper notice, is not really grounds for a recall.”

But that legal standard doesn’t stand in the way until late in the process, which Eveler laid out:

  • Submit an application to the Cobb Board of Elections & Registration with 100 signatures of adults who lived in Stultz’s district, which covers and , at the time of his election in November and still live there. Those 100 people become the sponsors of the recall, and if the Board of Elections verifies and accepts the application, they will receive a recall petition.
  • Circulate the petition to gain the signatures of adults in Stultz’s Smyrna-area district equal to at least 30 percent of the registered voters in the district at the time of the election last November.
  • Survive a court challenge to the recall petition.
  • Defeat Stultz in an election in which the choice is simple—he stays or he goes. A successful recall would result in another election being held to fill his seat.

In her time as elections director, Eveler has seen recall efforts in Cobb, but none has made it to Election Day.


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