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Court ruling ends race for open TUSD seats

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The race for three seats on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board is effectively over.

A Superior Court judge on Monday removed board hopeful Michael Hicks from the ballot, leaving three candidates in the race for three seats.

Hicks, a city transportation worker, did not have the 400 signatures he needed to qualify for the ballot. One hundred of the 449 signatures he submitted were invalidated, the bulk of them because the voters lived outside the school district boundaries.

Political activist Alan Leibensperger, who challenged the signatures, could not be reached for comment, but he wrote in an e-mail that he had no malice toward the would-be candidate but did question his effectiveness. He added: "Without having to face an election, the time and money that would have gone towards campaigning by the candidates can now be used in other productive ways."

Susan Hankinson, senior administrative specialist for elections in the Pima County Schools Superintendent's Office, said it was her understanding that the deadline for write-in candidates ended last week, although she is confirming that with election attorneys.

So barring unforeseen events, incumbent Judy Burns will return to her seat.

University of Arizona professor Mark Stegeman, who serves on the district's outside audit committee, and Miguel Cuevas, a UA senior studying public management and policy, will join her on the board.

Current TUSD Governing Board President Alex Rodriguez and 20-year veteran Joel Ireland said earlier this month that they would not run for re-election.

Technically, the Pima County Board of Supervisors could cancel the board election and just deem the slate of candidates elected. But the district, which has to pay for its own election, wouldn't save any money by canceling the board election because it will ask voters to weigh in on another ballot measure: an override to pay for fine arts, class sizes and incentives for hard-to-fill teaching positions.