Despite challenge, school board will seat Houston

The Mountain Home School Board plans on seating C.D. Houston at its July 21 regular monthly meeting, despite a challenge to Houston's May 19 election.

Houston had initially been declared the winner of the school board post currently held by Jo Gridley, whose term ends July 21, but Houston had won by only three votes and a canvass of the votes revealed three votes had been cast by individuals who did not live in the current trustee zone for the election.

While his challenger, William Murray, did not contest the election, three weeks later the members of the school board did, insisting that they wanted to make sure Houston's election was valid. There is no precedent in Idaho law for an election in which invalid votes equaled or exceeded the margin of victory.

The challenge will be heard by Fourth District Judge Mike Wetherell on Aug. 19, beginning at 9 a.m. The school board members are not seeking any specific relief, but simply a judicial determination of what they should do. A pre-trial conference will be held Aug. 3.

"At this point," school board chairman Jim Alexander said, "we have no reason not to seat Mr. Houston. The caveat is, however, that this is still in dispute.

"We realize this puts him in a very uncomfortable position. We don't want to create a hardship with it (the swearing in or Houston), but it seems the right thing to do," even though the judge, among the options open to him, could theoretically wind up declaring the election invalid and ordering a new election.

Alexander noted that "this is a situation we just don't know how to deal with, and obviously, neither does anyone else. We will go with whatever remedy the judge directs."

Alexander said the school district has not been able to contact Houston to tell him of the seating decision, since he is not listed in the phone book and has not left a phone number with the district.

"I hope he shows up" at the July 21 meeting, Alexandar said.