Kurt Brooks has become the third write-in candidate for a vacant two-year seat on the Higley Unified School District Governing Board after county election officials amended paperwork that originally listed him as seeking a four-year term.
Brooks joins Kathleen Richards and Travis White in the Nov. 3 contest to complete the final two years of former Board Member Scott Glover’s term.
The Maricopa County School Superintendent’s Office amended Brooks’ candidacy Aug. 25 after determining he had contacted the office about the vacancy before the July 20 filing deadline, Communications Officer Annabella Gomez said.
Brooks previously had been listed as a write-in candidate for one of two full four-year terms on the HUSD board. Attempts to reach Brooks for comment were unsuccessful.
The change adds another twist to a vacancy that already has gone from a planned appointment by County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs to a court-ordered election and has prompted controversy over who knew about Glover’s resignation before the write-in deadline.
Glover resigned the morning of July 20 as he prepared to move to Portugal. That also was the final day candidates could qualify as write-ins for the November election.
The superintendent office’s candidate information page states write-in nomination papers had to be filed no later than 5 p.m. July 20.
Richards and White filed that morning for the remainder of Glover’s term.
Brooks’ nomination paper is dated July 20 and identifies him as a candidate for Higley governing board but does not specify a two-year term. The filing supplied by the county carries an acceptance timestamp of 5:03 p.m. with a 5:05:42 p.m. pdf creation timestamp July 20 — shortly after the office’s listed 5 p.m. deadline.
Gomez said Brooks had contacted the superintendent’s office earlier that afternoon about the Higley vacancy.
At that point, however, the office was operating under legal advice that Boggs could fill the midterm vacancy through an appointment or call a special election and that the remaining two years of Glover’s term were not available in the November election, Gomez said.
County officials consequently told Brooks there was no two-year seat for which he could file, Gomez said. He instead filed as a write-in for a four-year seat based on the advice the office gave him.
That legal interpretation for an appointment later was rejected in court.
White sued Boggs and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors July 27, challenging the decision not to place the vacancy on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Julie Mata ruled Aug. 19 that the vacancy had to go before voters and that the write-in filings for the two-year term had to be processed. The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the ruling Aug. 21.
After the court decisions, Brooks contacted the superintendent’s office again and said his original intention had been to seek the two-year seat, according to Gomez.
Because Brooks had contacted the office about the vacancy before the filing deadline and had been directed to file for a four-year seat, officials consulted again with legal counsel and amended his filing Aug. 25, Gomez said.
The change means Brooks no longer is competing for one of the two full four-year terms and instead will face Richards and White for the two years remaining on Glover’s term.
The two-year contest is separate from the election for the two full four-year HUSD board terms.
Richards and White also filed July 20, shortly after Glover’s resignation was delivered to the superintendent’s office. The timing became a point of controversy as some contended other potential candidates did not have public notice of the vacancy before the write-in deadline.
Richards has disputed suggestions that she benefited from an orchestrated effort to limit the field.
“I wish that he would've been able to figure out a way for whatever reason to see it through to the end or perhaps not wait until the last minute so that it didn't set off alarm bells needlessly,” Richards previously told Independent Newsmedia about Glover’s timing. “But he was in control of that, not anyone else.”
None of the three candidates’ names will be printed on the ballot. Voters must write in the name of their preferred qualified candidate for their vote to count.
Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him on X at @sp_blodgett.
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
Higley Unified School District,
Kurt Brooks,
Kathleen Richards,
Travis White,
Higley school board election,
HUSD Governing Board,
write-in election,
Scott Glover,
Maricopa County School Superintendent,
Shelli Boggs
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