Education, elections and water: Yuba County candidates talk tough issues | News

The following is a summary of these segments of the forum and the answers and comments provided by each candidate.

Yuba County Superintendent of Schools

In his opening statement, Reveles said he believed parents have the “ultimate and God-given right” to decide what’s best for their children. He said he will continue to advocate for changes in laws that are affecting children both locally and at the state level.

“My approach is level-headed and always on the level. I believe our schools must reflect our community values and our administration must be transparent, responsive to the public,” Reveles said. “Key areas that I will continue to strongly advocate for include implementation of a countywide career tech adult education master plan. Continue collaboration with Yuba College and developing viable apprenticeship opportunities in partnership with labor and business leaders.”

His opponent, Meyerpeter-Newman, said she wanted to bring a “new vision” and “new direction” to the Yuba County Office of Education.

“My vision for the county office would be to make it a hub of rich resources for the school districts, the teachers, and the children in Yuba County,” Meyerpeter-Newman said. “My direction would be to meet with stakeholders – meaning the community members, the school district personnel, teachers, parents, and even students – and develop a long-term plan. And in this long-term plan I would like to offer new programs … and I would also like to streamline some of the existing programs.”

When asked what the role of the superintendent of schools was, Meyerpeter-Newman said along with some schools that fall under the office, the superintendent also is “responsible for identifying challenges in the local schools and implementing plans to address those challenges.”

Reveles said the role is “very wide,” but it’s also about accountability. 

“We have great districts, great board members, but my role is to also sign off on their budgets so they’re not insolvent. That’s a very real responsibility,” Reveles said.

In relation to challenges faced by Yuba County schools, Reveles said it’s important to get “beyond the COVID,” a reference to pandemic mitigation efforts at schools.

“I call it the COVID purgatory, the turbulence. Working with the turbulence, not the challenge, it’s not repeating the mistakes of the past,” Reveles said. “The challenge right now is to make sure parents have access to the governance, access to the school boards, etc. That was very clear. Beyond that, we’re talking about learning loss. That has happened. I’m not into blaming people. It’s about taking responsibility. … Greatest challenge is how do we move forward with faith in our community.”

Meyerpeter-Newman said some of the main challenges for Yuba County students is meeting the needs of the diverse population in the area. She said those needs are highlighted in statistics that show a large majority of students in county schools do not meet expectations on state mathematics and language arts tests.

“If that’s not a need, I don’t know what is. An additional need in Yuba County is to make the schools more accessible to the parents,” Meyerpeter-Newman said. “… The parents need a pathway and there are laws in place that allow parents access, but I think that those have kind of fallen out of favor. I think bringing those back and inviting parents back into the discussions at the school districts is a very important thing to include in Yuba County.”

When asked how each candidate would handle another COVID-19 surge or other pandemic, Meyerpeter-Newman said there should be guidelines ahead of time for teachers and to expect students to struggle.

“That was a crazy time in education and there are scars. I’m in the Yuba County schools almost every single day and I see the teachers struggling and I see the students struggling,” Meyerpeter-Newman said. “One thing I think is important is to not expect the students to be on track. I have a friend that’s a high school teacher and she teaches ninth grade and she said basically I have seventh graders. That’s true academically, as well as some of the social skills they’ve lost out on.”

Reveles said it’s about “rebuilding faith.” He said many parents have lost faith in the government.

“It’s also about holding our state leaders accountable,” Reveles said. “… It’s about reclaiming confidence, confidence in our leaders, etc. It is about giving parents access.”

With regards to supporting charter schools, Reveles said he was in favor of effective schools. 

“Make sure they have the resources, the support,” Reveles said. “… When something happens to some of our charter schools, I’m out there, first on the scene. … Public schools, same thing. It’s about action, that’s how you build faith.”

Meyerpeter-Newman said she supported charter schools because they offer an alternative to public schools.

“If anything, it will make the public schools better if there’s competition that drives innovation,” Meyerpeter-Newman said. “I think, honestly, it’s time for some change in the schools and I think it’ll be driven by the charter schools.”

When asked why she was qualified for the superintendent of schools position, Meyerpeter-Newman said her experience as a teacher and in various other positions in education make her qualified. She said she has a bachelor’s degree in science, a master’s degree in education, and has completed coursework for a doctorate.

Reveles cited his vast educational background and his time spent as a former teacher and principal.

In their closing statements, Meyerpeter-Newman said she was a district science lead for a school district of 10,000 at the Texas-Mexico border.

“Down there I was able to raise the academic performance scores 20 points in a single year just by working with a team of teachers,” Meyerpeter-Newman said.

She said, “if you want to know what a person will do, look at what they’ve done.”

Reveles said he was “students first” and that parental rights are part of his vision for the county.

“True leadership is not about who knows who, but about what you’ve done, your track record,” he said.

Facing off in the Yuba County Clerk race are Donna Hillegass and Tambra Courtright. Because she was concerned with election integrity, Courtright said she decided to run for county clerk. 

Courtright said her experience in medical coding will give her the “ability to learn the job and do it well.”

Hillegass said “election integrity is the cornerstone” of the nation’s democracy and she was “devoted to protecting it.” She said she was committed to helping to educate voters on the election process.

“I have over 17 years of experience in the clerk/recorder’s office and have overseen 30 federal, state, local and special district elections,” Hillegass said. “I manage an annual budget of almost $2 million, a staff of 14 and up to 190 support staff and volunteers during election time frames.” 

Courtright claimed that from going “door-to-door,” she said people that worked the polls had “questions about the way things were ran” and that correspondence sent to the clerk/recorder officer weren’t followed up on.

Hillegass said an improvement that can be made in the office is the implementation of special district workshops.

“I’d like to bring those back,” Hillegass said. “Where we bring the special districts in and we help them to understand the election process, how that relates to their district and what they need to do to keep their governing boards up and running.”

Hillegass also said she also would like to implement a “risk-limiting audit,” an additional audit after the election during the canvass process before the election is certified.

“What that audit does is that ensures the integrity of the process. It ensures that everything was completed accurately,” she said.

Hillegass said her past experience in the clerk’s office, dealing with the election process and handling functions associated with the office make her qualified for the position.

“Those functions may seem simple on paper, but they’re not. They’re very complex,” Hillegass said. “After 17 years, every election, every day, there is additional complexity to learn. Complexity from the state. Legislation continually being passed down from the state to be implemented and to understand how that impacts the current system and what needs to be done to make that effective in the office.”

Courtright continued to stress the need for election integrity when asked why she was qualified for the clerk position.

“I think that when we consider election integrity and what has happened in our nation in the last few years, that when we’re electing people from within and they are maintaining that there is integrity in our system,” Courtright said.

When asked what can be done to make voters more confident in the election process, Courtright said there should be more community involvement and openness. 

“I think when we are electing from within the office and they’re already saying that everything is secure and accurate, then that causes the questions not to be answered,” Courtright said. “I don’t feel confident in the systems that are in place. I would like to hear the people to have the opportunity to fully question and be sure that the people have the confidence in the systems being used. Dominion (Voting Systems) specifically, there’s a lot of questions nationwide about Dominion. I think there are other certified options in the state and it would be good to consider other certified options.”

Conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems and its involvement in the 2020 election have largely been debunked. 

“Two weeks after the 2020 election, a team of lawyers closely allied with Donald J. Trump held a widely watched news conference at the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington,” The New York Times reported in September 2021. “At the event, they laid out a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that a voting machine company had worked with an election software firm, the financier George Soros and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Mr. Trump.”

The Times reported that “by the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump’s campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the separate software company, Smartmatic. The memo had determined that those allegations were untrue.”

A defamation lawsuit brought against the Trump campaign and others by former Dominion employee Eric Coomer, contained evidence that officials in the campaign were aware early on that many of the claims against the companies were baseless, The New York Times reported.

“As Mr. Coomer’s lawyers wrote in their motion in the defamation suit, ‘The memo produced by the Trump campaign shows that, at least internally, the Trump campaign found there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding Dominion’ and Mr. Coomer,” The New York Times reported.

Hillegass said in order to instill confidence, the public needs to get more actively interested.

“Over the last 17 years, for every election, we’ve had invitations out for the public to come and see the logic and accuracy testing we do of the voting equipment,” Hillegass said. “We do that before every election. I think over all that time we’ve had two people actually show up. We’ve had a lot of calls, a lot of questions, but we need to get people to actually be interested and come see what happens and understand the security measures, the security processes that we use here in Yuba County to perform those functions.” 

After the forum, several members of the public approached the Appeal with their concerns about the election process in Yuba County. One of those concerns had to do with freedom of information requests that a person felt weren’t being answered with relation to the clerk’s office and elections. When the Appeal reached out to the county about this issue, the county said any request that is made is answered.

“Public Records Act requests go through the County Counsel’s Office. These requests do not go unanswered, as state law outlines processes and timelines for agencies to follow depending on the request,” county counsel said in an email.

Another concern was bloated voting rolls. To make this point, a document was handed out showing that some people on the list may not actually be alive. One such person on the list was listed as being 117 years old. When asked about this specific person, Hillegass said that was a data entry error and the person was actually in their mid-30s.

“Voter maintenance (updating the voter rolls) is an ongoing process throughout the year. All 58 California Counties are linked via the state system. Through this system we receive registration updates generated by the National Change of Address, California Department of Public Health, Department of Motor Vehicles, Department of Corrections, the Secretary of State online registration system and other counties,” Hillegass said in an email. “In addition to these sources any election mailing returned by USPS will initiate an address confirmation procedure that can result in changes to a voter’s registration. Additional sources of voter registration updates: Voters, election day rosters. The law outlines the conditions under which voter registration records can be inactivated and cancelled. When changes are not reported through one of these systems and no other notice is furnished to the elections office, voters may remain on the rolls until notification is provided. For example, if a Yuba County resident passes away out of state it is unlikely the state will provide that information to California. Under this circumstance, it is necessary for the family to notify the office or for election mail to be returned.”

During the forum when asked about the 2020 presidential election, Hillegass said she could assure the voters of Yuba County that “we have taken extensive measures to ensure the integrity of the process, the system, the equipment. It is not solely left to that equipment operating. We performed significant amount of checks and balances. That’s part of the whole canvass process.”

She said she felt secure in the vote in Yuba County.

Courtright again said there were still questions nationwide about the 2020 presidential election process and its integrity.

“I will not say that I 100 percent feel that it was not a valid election,” Courtright said. “But based on the information I have seen outside of the officials who have said that it was valid, it seems that there’s information that has not been fully looked at.”

She also claimed that “the courts refused to even look at the information.”

President Trump’s Attorney General William Barr said the U.S. Justice Department uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.

Christopher Krebs, a lifelong Republican who led the federal government’s efforts to secure the 2020 election said, “This was a secure election. That is a success story. That is something everyone in the administration should be proud of. That’s the story I feel we should be telling now.”

State and federal judges across the country dismissed more than 50 lawsuits presented by then President Trump and his allies challenging the election or its outcome, Reuters reported in February 2021. Independent experts, governors and state election officials from both parties have said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Hillegass said in her closing statement that her character has been questioned by supporters of Courtright in the past week. They contend that by being on the ballot, she does not have the integrity to run the election.

When asked about the fact that Hillegass was more or less overseeing her own election, county counsel said, “The County Clerk is a position with a non-delegable duty – meaning, this position has statutory duties to carry out that may not be delegated to a third party. This obligation of any elected or appointed clerk in California is written into a portion of their statutory duties (Government Code section 26802).”

Hillegass said even though distrust in elections has grown over time, she remains “committed to the integrity of the process and addressing concerns openly and honestly.” She said it’s “imperative” that someone with experience and knowledge of the process holds the important role of clerk/recorder.

“Unjust criticism has no impact whatsoever on the truth. I do not believe the county clerk is a politician,” Hillegass said. “I believe the county clerk is a government role, a servant of the people. … It is not the role of the county clerk to lobby political views or create laws. When a county clerk can pick and choose which laws to follow and which laws to ignore, she is no longer doing her job.” 

Courtright said she cared deeply about the future of Yuba County and the country.

“Election integrity plays a key role in our legacy. Experience versus a fresh perspective is what we’re dealing with here,” Courtright said. “… When we’re looking at integrity, electing from within the office, I think a fresh perspective is the better option.”

She said her professional experience and attention to detail were ideal for the position.

“As county clerk, I will focus on accurate and timely, keeping the records and filings, clean voter rolls and ensuring that our election process is clean, transparent and honest,” Courtright said.

Yuba Water Agency Board of Directors, South Division

In the final portion of Wednesday night’s candidate forum, Yuba Water Agency Board of Directors, South Division incumbent Hastey and candidate Bishop discussed why they should be elected to serve on a board for an agency that has grown tremendously over time and established itself as one of the more powerful agencies in the state.

At a time of extreme drought and when water rights and availability are hotly contested, each candidate stressed the importance of the position.

“The Yuba Water Agency is an incredible asset left to us by past county leaders who had vision, good business sense and plenty of guts,” Bishop, who owns Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm, said. “I want to make sure we honor their legacy by making good, sound business decisions in this critical time in the history of the agency and being good stewards of all the benefits the agency provides.”

Hastey said his leadership has helped make a difference in the lives of Yuba County citizens.

“We have really started making a difference in the community since I’ve been on this board. My hope is that we’ll continue to do that,” Hastey said. “We have the resources because of those people who came before us. Those people, 60 years ago, did miracles. We have to make sure that 50 years from now, when people look back to us as leaders here, that we did miracles, that we changed the community we live in. And that’s my hope, to continue to make Yuba County better every second I’m here.”

Bishop said as a farmer, he fully understands the importance of water.

“I understand the importance of the Yuba River Accord. I understand the importance of renegotiating that when it’s up in the next couple years,” Bishop said. “I think it’s critical that we have farmers on the water agency board. I will certainly do everything I can to make sure that accord gets renewed.”

Hastey said he spends every day protecting Yuba County water. 

“This is the worst water year we’ve had in the history of my lifetime and anybody since the agency’s been built. But we have a full supply in Yuba County,” Hastey said. “I will continue to protect that. I will say this, I think it’s important that you have to be in the room when it happens. I have spent my life making sure that when it happens, I will be there for Yuba County. I will be where they make the decisions that protect Yuba County’s water.”

Hastey said he was not only on the board to protect farmers, but also other users of water such as in urban areas.

“I’m there to protect not just the farmers who are doing quite well in Yuba County, but all of us,” he said.

Hastey said one of the biggest challenges facing Yuba Water Agency is making sure voluntary agreements are finished. 

“I was there two weeks ago when we signed the MOUs, which was incredibly important long-term for the Yuba Water Agency,” Hastey said. “It steadies our revenue source over the next 10 to almost 20 years. So, it is incredibly important that we have people in Yuba County who are in that room when that negotiation is happening and when it is signed and finished, hopefully in the next two years.”

Hastey also said it was important to invest in infrastructure “that makes a difference in this community.”

Bishop said the biggest challenges for Yuba Water Agency will always be flood control and water delivery.

“The challenge that I think is interesting right now is that the Yuba Water Agency has an opportunity that I’m afraid we’re gonna miss. That opportunity is created by the $175 million that’s in the bank right now that the water agency has available for projects beyond its missions,” Bishop said. “We have a 45-page document of ideas we can choose from. Unfortunately, what I’ve learned in my business is that there’s no shortage of ideas out there, but there’s often a shortage of good ideas. We need a business person to sift through all of those ideas and find the good ones and let’s get started making some investments and making Yuba County better.”

With regards to a planned education center spearheaded by Yuba Water Agency, Bishop said the amount of money the agency plans to dedicate to the project is unnecessary.

“I don’t think we need $120 million worth of roads and buildings to make that happen. My business was built with less than 10 percent of that amount of money over 50 years,” Bishop said. “I’m just certain that we can achieve those goals, which are awesome, of getting kids in Yuba County out to the river and getting them interested in things that could become a career to them. It’s just not gonna take $120 million to do that.”

Hastey said he has been the most passionate about building the education center.

“I heard what both the Yuba County Office of Education people said and most of the supervisors, we need to take care of the children in Yuba County,” Hastey said. “… I think it is important. I don’t think it has to be built tomorrow. I think it’s absolutely a phased project, over time. Maybe it takes 20 years. Maybe it takes 30. … I am absolutely for supporting changing the lives of the children in Yuba County.”

In his closing statement, Hastey said he has spent his life serving in Yuba County. 

“I love this county and I have dedicated my life to making it better. The time to be on this board was 2014 and I made that decision a long time ago. Because that’s when we took back over the agency in 2016, so planning and thinking about when it’s the best time, it’s not this year. We’ve got some big things we gotta get done and we need experience to finish that,” Hastey said. “… You can see from me sitting up here how different it is. I’m sitting up here because we started leading at the Yuba Water Agency in Yuba County. I want to continue to lead and I want to continue to make this community a place where my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren can’t wait to be a part of. That means we do economic development. That means we bring in water to places that need it. That means we do wastewater in south county. That means we do infrastructure projects. But there is no other place in the state that has the ability that we have.”

Bishop said because of his education and success as a businessman, he is ready for a role on the Yuba Water Agency board.

“My opponent has been on the agency board for many years. He talks about all the important people he knows around the state, but I believe we need to elect real leaders to the water agency board,” Bishop said. “Great leaders are not defined by who they know or how many boards they’ve been on. Great leaders are defined by the effects they’ve had on other people’s lives.”

Videos are available for all the candidate forums that took place on Monday and Wednesday night. To view them, visit the Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.