No Office Hours for Trustee Landry leading up to a consequential LCAP vote

No May Office Hours, and an LCAP Vote 5 Weeks Away

Trustee Catarina Landry is holding no office hours in May.

That is a problem, and here is why it matters right now. Landry's office hours have historically fallen in the last week of the month. The LCAP vote is coming up on June 18. A study session on the LCAP process and the decisions inside it is being held tonight. For community members and parents in Landry's trustee area, a late-May office hours would have been the last real opportunity to ask her directly about the draft LCAP, about what comes out of the study session, and about how she intends to vote. That opportunity will not happen.

What "representation" is supposed to mean

Office hours are not a courtesy. They are the mechanism by which an elected trustee stays answerable to the people who elected her, in person, on the record, before a vote rather than after it. When that channel disappears in the exact window before a consequential decision, constituents are left to comment on a plan they could not question and to a representative they could not reach. Missing direct communication with constituents before a consequential vote is not thin representation. It is the absence of representation at the moment representation is needed most.

The decisions this silence is sitting on top of

This is not a quiet year that happens to have a scheduling gap. Trustee Landry has been on the board through a period of major decisions, and she served as board president for much of it, finishing her term as president in December 2025. On January 8, 2026, she was one of four trustees who voted to approve the MacArthur Park Charter School, in a 4-1 vote with Trustee Guzman the sole opposition. That charter pulls average daily attendance funding away from a district already under financial strain and facing continued enrollment decline. Over the same span, the board hired a new superintendent and there have been four staffing changes at the district office. Each of these is a major decision with lasting consequences for students, families, and staff. Decisions of that weight should come with more constituent access, not less.

Instead, direct communication through office hours has come to a grinding halt. Trustee Bell’s and Lehman's office hours have drawn little constituent attendance and Lehman has missed scheduled meetings as well. Trustee Landry held no office hours in May at all. Whether individual constituents are reaching her privately by email or in other ways is not something Sonoma Schools Alliance can speak to. What we can say is that office hours, the one open and predictable channel where any constituent can show up and be heard, did not happen in May. For many people that is the only practical opportunity they have.

The question the board needs to answer

So the question is fair, and it is direct. What is there to be afraid of?

Constituents understand why schools were closed. What they have not been given is a clear answer for why this board turned around and approved a new charter at a time when the district's finances are fragile and enrollment continues to shrink. Landry voted yes on that charter. That is exactly the kind of decision a constituent has a right to ask their trustee about, face to face, before the next consequential vote. It is not a hostile question. It is the ordinary work of being represented. A board confident in its decisions does not need to avoid the people those decisions affect.

Agreement is not the issue here. Access is. Hold the office hours. Answer the questions. Before the vote, not after it. That is the job, and right now it is not being done.

What you can do before June 18

If you live in Trustee Landry's area, or anywhere in the district, you do not have to wait for an office hours session that was never scheduled. You can email your trustee directly and ask, in writing, how they intend to vote on the LCAP and why. You can attend the June 18 meeting and speak during public comment. And you can ask every trustee, on the record, to commit to holding office hours before consequential votes, not after them.

The LCAP vote is June 18. The window to be heard is now.

Documented by Leigh Cavalier, Sonoma Schools Alliance, May 2026

Unidos por Nuestras Escuelas, United for Our Schools

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