After illegal vote and months of turmoil, 3 Richland School Board members need to go | Opinion

It’s time for the Richland School District to start anew.

With ballots coming out for the Aug. 1 primary election, voters must support the recall and rid the district of Richland School Board members Audra Byrd, Kari Williams and Semi Bird.

From the time Bird and Byrd were elected in 2021, the school district has been in turmoil.

Yes, they rode into office on a wave of frustration over Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s attempts to slow the spread of COVID-19 — especially by requiring students to wear masks at school.

But despite what their supporters expected, once they took office they had a duty to follow state law. It’s clear by now that they knowingly ignored that obligation.

In an unnecessary, belligerent move in February 2022, Byrd, Williams and Bird voted to make masks optional for the next school day.

It wasn’t their call to make, and the result was chaos while district officials dealt with the consequences of their misguided action.

For starters, defying the state mask mandate could trigger the loss of state funding.

The vote also came as a surprise because Byrd, Williams and Bird ignored the spirit of the Open Meetings Act when they took their vote. There simply was not enough time to alert school employees and manage the change, so Richland School Superintendent Shelley Redinger ended up closing school for two days.

In the end, students returned to class wearing masks until the governor’s mandate was officially lifted a few weeks later.

All that disruption was for nothing.

Richland School Board members were told repeatedly by school attorneys and other state officials that they did not have the authority to override state law.

But Byrd, Williams and Bird didn’t care.

What’s worse — they still don’t seem to care. The three have shown no remorse for their decision.

Semi Bird even publicly insisted that because the mask requirement was a “mandate,” it really wasn’t a law.

To be clear — mandates and laws carry the same power and the same weight. The difference between them is how they come to be.

Washington state laws are created and approved through the legislative process, while mandates come from a governor in times of crisis.

Breaking the law – or defying a mandate — leads to consequences.

Considering that Semi Bird has decided not to run for the school board again in order to focus on running for governor, we hope he would realize by now the correct definition of a mandate.

Audra Byrd is not up for re-election, so if she is not recalled she would be able to serve out the rest of her term.

Kari Williams is up for re-election, and she appears on the primary ballot twice — once for trying to retain her seat and once for the recall.

It’s possible she could be recalled from her current position and ousted right away, but still end up on the ballot in the general election in November.

It might help voters to know that Semi Bird is the chairman of the Benton County Republican Party and that the Richland School Board candidates endorsed by the party are Gene Nemeth, Aaron Riggs and Nino Kapitulo.

On her Facebook site, Audra Byrd also has supported these three.

In a recent Letter to the Editor, former Richland School Board member Heather Cleary is supporting the re-election of Richland School Board member Jill Oldson, and newcomers Chelsie Beck and Katrina Waters.

The League of Women Voters of Benton-Franklin will broadcast their candidate forums beginning Thursday and Friday, July 13 and 14. They will be available through Election Day on a variety of websites, including the League, the Columbia Basin Badger Club and the city of Richland.

As for the recall, remember that it wasn’t clear how virulent COVID-19 would be as it evolved from one variant to the next.

Byrd, Williams and Bird ignored both the available science and the law. None of them had any expertise in either. All they had was emotion on their side.

There has been strife and divisiveness in the Richland School District for too long. It’s time to oust these three board members and release the baggage they carry with them.