The governing board of the Saugus Union School District will hold a public hearing Tuesday, Sept. 29, on the plan to split the district into five parts for purpose of school board elections.

Heretofore, the district has been served by a five-member board elected by all voters in the school district. After the planned switch, each of the five board members would represent a unique geographic area within the district. Instead of all voters electing all five school board members in the current “at large” system, each voter would elect just one person to represent his or her own “trustee area.”

The move is part of a proposed settlement of a lawsuit filed against the school district by Jim Soliz, a local Democratic activist who with Rosemarie Sanchez-Fraser also sued the city of Santa Clarita and the Santa Clarita Community College District (COC). The lawsuits allege that the current “at-large” system leaves Hispanics underrepresented, in contravention to the California Voting Rights Act.

The William S. Hart Union High School District faced the threat of a similar lawsuit and split into five “trustee areas” for the upcoming November election. Ironically, the only Hispanic candidates to file for office in the Hart District after the switch were the incumbents. Nobody challenged the incumbents in the Newhall or Sulphur Springs elementary districts, which were under similar threat.

Officials say no public agency in California has ever successfully defended against a CVRA lawsuit.

The hearing on Saugus on Sept. 29 will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the school district board room at 24930 Avenue Stanford in the Valencia Industrial Center. It is intended to “receive community comments and questions regarding the submission of a General Waiver Request to the California Department of Education to be approved by the California State Board of Education” as part of the transition to a by-trustee area election system.