Recently ousted Paso Robles Joint Unified School District (PRJUSD) trustee Kenney Enney is leading in his bid to reclaim a seat on the contentious North County school board.
Election night results on April 18 showed Enney with a 52 percent to 48 percent edge over challenger Angela Hollander—a difference of 412 votes out of nearly 10,000 counted thus far, a 32 percent turnout.
More than 2,000 ballots still remained to be counted—mostly mail-in ballots delivered on April 18 or postmarked April 18—according to SLO County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano on April 19. Those ballots will be counted and posted to the county’s website on Friday, April 21, she said.
After seeing the first round of results on April 18, Enney admitted that he was surprised to see himself “holding his own.” But he added, “it’s kind of early to tell what’s going to happen.”
“I’m glad I’m getting support,” the rancher and retired Marine said. “I think what I’m probably happiest about is the fact that I’ve kind of changed the narrative. It was an issue of getting the word out about how poorly performing our schools have really been.”
Hollander told New Times that the close results thus far show that “we have a divided community.”
“Some people like his style. Some people like mine,” Hollander said. “My focus was, we’re not going low. We’re going to focus on the positives. I’m proud of that.”
PRJUSD’s April 18 special election went on the calendar back in December 2022, when hundreds of district voters signed a petition to oust Enney, who had been appointed to a seat after the resignation of former trustee Chris Bausch.
The petition, according to previous New Times reporting, was sparked in part by a Facebook post in which Enney wrote about the transgender community: “You can’t be something you’re not, just because you say so and have surgery. … Although not reported, many within the LGBQ community reject what is transpiring in our schools, because of the ‘T,’ … which is an attempt to recruit and convert children.”
Hollander, a nonprofit manager and retired NICU nurse, said that her main concern if Enney prevails in the race is whether the district can recruit a high-quality superintendent to replace Curt Dubost, whose contract is up this year.
“We need to recruit the best and the brightest to come in and lead us into the next decade,” Hollander said. “If Mr. Enney comes in and we go back to the board looking at the false news that there’s gangs at our school or looking for kitty litter boxes, we’re not going to move forward. Because who would want to come to that job?”
In response to that, Enney said he doesn’t think the district will have any trouble recruiting a superintendent if he’s elected.
“I don’t think that’s a concern at all,” Enney said. “In fact, I’ve already been talking to people out in Clovis who’ve given me names of several people out there who said they’d be interested in being candidates here. Clovis has done much better [than Paso]. Bringing in people with fresh ideas, whether it’s Clovis or some other school districts that have outperformed us, they’re out there. We need to find candidates who want to fix the problem.” Δ
This article appears in Apr 20-30, 2023.
Talking to people “out is Clovis” eh? Those folks should be PERFECT for the little MAGA city here in SLO county.