Bloomfield Schools Recall Petitions Will Continue to Circulate

Bloomfield 20/20 and its supporters will continue to circulate recall petitions for members of the Bloomfield Hills Schools Board of Education into next year.

The effort to unseat all seven current board members has been going on in earnest since August and drawn support from a wide range of community members, said B20/20 organizer Jenny Greenwell. Extending the petition circulation time gives the group a bit of insurance that it will exceed the 5,200 required signatures to force a recall election.

Greenwell said Monday she did not know the total number of signatures accumulated by Oct. 12, the initial 90-day marker from the recall campaigns start, and that many were still out in the community. However, she said she has been very pleased with results thus far.

Recall supporters accuse board members of not acting in the best interests of the students and taxpayers when they supported consolidation of Andover and Lahser high schools after a $74 million bond proposal failed last November. The recall wording was approved by the Oakland County Election Commission in phases in July. 

State law allows 90 days for recall petitions to be circulated. Greenwell said that several hundred early petition signers may have to re-sign paperwork in order to be validated under the new deadline and that B20/20 members are trying to identify them. That task aside, B20/20 members believe the extended circulation time also allows time to capitalize on some key district events and announcements, said Greenwell.

That includes tonight’s special meeting on the proposed plans for a consolidated Bloomfield Hills High School at 7 p.m. at the Doyle Center. 

Superintendent Rob Glass said the meeting is significant because district consultants Fielding Nair International will unveil the schematic design for a combined high school, and the potential cost.

“It’s our first step into understanding what this might be,” Glass said, noting it was a collaborative effort with the community over the past year.

“This is a culmination of it and it’s exciting because we’ll find out what we’re going to get.”

Part of tonight’s presentation will cover the need for a millage request that B20/20 members anticipate to be between $60-$70 million.

“People are going to be outraged in the community and I think they’ll be ready to sign,” Greenwell said about the impact of tonight’s presentation.

Glass said it will be an opportunity to for the public to see how far the concept has evolved and how much care went toward financial stewardship.

"This is not a blank check," he said. "We listened, people wanted detail and we worked hard to do that."

In promoting the event, the district noted that the current unified high school concept was in the district's 2018 strategic plan approved by the Board in 2008. In June, the board unanimously passed a recommendation from Glass to merge and high schools into Bloomfield Hills High School on two separate campuses in 2013.

“The presentation on Oct. 18 is a way for the board to check in with the community to gauge their response to the schematic and determine next steps,” said District Spokeswoman Shelley Yorke Rose in an e-mail.