TEMECULA, CA — One year into his four-year term, Temecula Valley Unified School District Trustee Danny Gonzalez has called it quits.
Gonzalez, who represented Trustee Area 2, submitted his resignation letter Friday with an immediate departure, according to a statement from the Temecula Valley Unified School District.
“It has been a privilege to serve the Temecula community,” Gonzalez said in the letter.
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The Press-Enterprise reported Gonzalez is moving to Texas.
Gonzalez’s term was to expire in December 2026. The now four-member TVUSD governing board will consider making a provisional appointment to fill the vacant seat.
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The appointment process includes advertising the open seat to solicit eligible applicants from Trustee Area 2 (see a map here). Eligible applicants would be interviewed at a public board meeting, and the four TVUSD board trustees would vote on the selection of a provisional appointee, according to the district statement. The vacancy must be filled within 60 days.
The board has the option of holding a special election and letting the voters of Trustee Area 2 decide who should fill the vacancy, but the process would cost the district thousands of dollars.
The governing board is expected to take the matter up at its scheduled Dec. 18 meeting.
An effort has been underway by One Temecula Valley PAC to recall Gonzalez, as well as Trustees Dr. Joseph Komrosky and Jennifer Wiersma. The three were voted into office in November 2022. Their campaigns were backed by the Inland Empire Family PAC, which works “to stop the indoctrination of our children by placing candidates on school boards who will fight for Christian and conservative values.”
Petition signatures for the recall were submitted to the Riverside County Registrar of Voters earlier this month but there was no word yet on the status. With Gonzalez gone, it’s unclear where the recall effort will go.
Without Gonzalez, the TVUSD board no longer has a conservative majority. Gonzalez, Komrosky and Wiersma aligned on several controversial policies including firing the well-liked TVUSD Superintendent Dr. Jodi McClay; book banning; banning any mention of critical race theory; adopting a policy mandating that school officials notify parents/guardians if their children are transgender or gender-nonconforming; and banning flags that don’t align with Christian ideals.
Those policies led to a lawsuit filed against the TVUSD Board of Trustees by a coalition of students, parents, teachers and a teachers’ union. The suit has garnered support from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The case is just one of several legal skirmishes the district has faced over the last year.
Trustees Allison Barclay and Steven Schwartz have pushed back against their colleagues but have been outnumbered.
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