A petition to remove Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board trustee Kenneth Enney gained enough valid signatures to merit a special election and kick him off the dais.
The petition was organized by several Paso Robles parents including Tracy Dauterman, who felt that Enney’s anti-transgender social media posts on the PRotect Paso Facebook group were inappropriate. In those posts, he claimed that transgenderism was “an attempt to recruit and convert children.”
“I’d like a school board candidate that will represent all students, and it was clear from the post that Mr. Enney made on social media that there’s a specific group of people who just do not accept and that he would not make decisions in their best interest,” Dauterman said.
Within a couple of weeks, the petition garnered nearly 800 signatures, more than the 455 necessary. The County Clerk-Recorder’s Office validated the signatures, and a special election will take place on April 18, 2023, to determine Enney’s replacement. Until then, the board will only have six board members.
Enney, who was forced to step down and said he will run in the special election, said he was likely targeted because he’s a conservative.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t like talking to people with different views and that’s the world I grew up with. … I believe in differing opinions. But that is what I think they don’t want to have,” Enney said. “I think, really, if you want to scratch the surface, I’m certainly not a threat to any any transgendered child. They have a right to go to school. I think the only area where I would differ with those teachers is making sure that there’s parental involvement.”
The controversial Facebook posts stem from an incident at the Oct. 11 board meeting, when a parent pointed out that the district webpage had a link to the Trevor Project’s website. According to Enney, the website featured a chat room where adults could masquerade as minors. The news spurred an online debate, where Enney’s comments would eventually lead to his removal from the board of trustees.
Many community members spoke in support of Enney at the Dec. 13 school board meeting, such as Jennifer Grinager, the former local Moms for Liberty chapter chair who recently won a seat on the Templeton Unified School District board.
“I’m also here to talk about how much money this is costing for a two-year appointment—money that [Superintendent Curt] Dubost spoke about on KSBY as either will take away from student services or from possible teacher salaries,” Grinager said. “I would hope that the board … [would] not put that against the students and them losing services.”
Dubost told New Times that he wished there was an alternative solution.
“I’m very disappointed and frustrated that any district money is being committed to something which we have no control over,” he said. “We have no say in it.”
The special election would cost the school district $493,000, a cost that Dauterman called the “price of democracy.” She said petitioners didn’t take the financial costs of an election lightly.
“Those of us who are in support of this think that there is a larger cost to leave Mr. Enney in the position, than there would be to pay for the special election to put somebody else in his place,” Dauterman said. “Some of the things that he supports are going to cost the district more money in the long run.”
A discrimination complaint against the outgoing school board caused a civil rights investigation against the district, Dauterman said, and those are the same people who appointed Enney to complete the remainder of Chris Bausch’s term. Baush resigned from his school board seat in August 2022 to serve on the Paso Robles City Council.
“We think that legal issues like that will continue with [the] actions Mr. Enney supports,” she said. Δ
Correction: This story was updated to include the correct date of the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District special election, which will take place on April 18.
This article appears in Dec 15-25, 2022.