Key Points:

• Recall group targets Tolleson Union School District leadership 

• Voters frustrated with board’s financial decisions and transparency

• Rep. Matt Gress hit with $26K bill to investigate district’s financial records

A group attempting to recall Tolleson Union School District’s Governing Board’s leadership says it is confident it will collect enough signatures to place the recall election on the ballot. 

After a series of financial decisions from the district, including a $25 million contract with Isaac Elementary School District to help it recover from receivership, moving the district office to Glendale, and leasing nearly 13 acres of land to a developer for low-income housing, some voters have grown frustrated with the board’s leadership. 

Tolleson community member Adan Morado, a Democrat, filed recall petitions in July against the board’s President Leezah Sun and Vice President Steven Chapman, both of whom he alleged have violated public trust that could harm students with their leadership. 

Morado was unavailable for comment, but Kim Owens, a Republican consultant assisting the recall campaign, told the Arizona Capitol Times that petitioners have collected 80% of the signatures needed before a Nov. 7 deadline and are averaging about 200 new signatures daily. 

Petitioners need to collect 8,711 valid signatures by the deadline. That signature requirement is 25% of the votes cast for all the board’s candidates during the last election.

“We’re not going to have any problem at all hitting that mark,” said Owens, who also formerly sat on the Governing Board for two decades. “If they think they’re going to challenge us, bring it on because we’re running the numbers on these signatures. We know exactly what our violation rate is. We have left no room on this one.”

Neither Sun nor Chapman responded to a request for comment from the Arizona Capitol Times. 

Owens said she rarely agrees with Morado on anything, but highlighted that Democrats and Republicans are growing frustrated with the board’s leadership.

“This is not MAGA. This is not Republicans trying to ruin public education. If anything, these are people who are committed to public education and who see the value in strong public schools,” she said.

The petitions follow legislative scrutiny of the district’s contract with Isaac Elementary School District. Joint Legislative Audit Committee Chairman Rep. Matt Gress, R-Phoenix, has begun investigating the district and its Superintendent Jeremy Calles.

Gress last week expressed alarm when the district notified him he would have to pay more than $26,000 — $1 per page — for financial public records, which it refused to give electronically. In a news release, he accused the district of blocking transparency.

“This refusal denies lawmakers the basic financial information needed to evaluate reforms and ensure tax dollars are spent responsibly. Arizonans have a right to know how their money is used, and blocking these records sets a dangerous and unacceptable precedent,” Gress said in a statement. 

According to an email exchange between Gress and Calles obtained by the Arizona Capitol Times from the House, Calles has instructed the district’s legal team to prepare an opinion request to Attorney General Kris Mayes to determine if Gress is subject to the requirements of the state’s public records law.

Calles told Gress that the district isn’t required to create records that don’t exist or provide records in his preferred format under state law. Still, Gress said his request is pursuant to the House’s investigation protocols, which could result in a legislative subpoena for the information he’s seeking if Tolleson continues to be uncooperative with his request.

“One dollar per page is a reasonable fee that doesn’t come close to compensating my staff for their efforts, but it should at least make you request information more responsibly,” Calles wrote in a Sept. 15 email to Gress. “If the Attorney General’s Office is willing to state that they agree with your assertion that as a legislator you are entitled to any data you want, given to you in a format you specify even when it causes us to create a record that doesn’t exist then I will comply.”’

Correction: This article was updated to correct the name of the Tolleson Union high School District.