Longtime Davis resident Jose Granda — a prominent critic of local school parcel tax proposals in recent years — filed his paperwork to become a candidate for the Davis school board on Wednesday.

Granda is a professor in the mechanical engineering department at Sacramento State University. He is also affiliated with NASA and served as a NASA public spokesman for 17 space shuttle missions.

He joins a field of declared school-board candidates including incumbent Susan Lovenburg, elected in 2007 and now seeking a second term; parent/activist Nancy Peterson, who has served with the Davis High School Blue & White Foundation, as well as several district-level and school-level panels; and parent/classroom volunteer Claire Sherman.

They are competing for two seats. Incumbent school board trustee Richard Harris has indicated that he will not seek a second term.

In the 1980s, Granda served on a technology task force in the Davis school district that advised the school board in the establishment of the first computer labs in the local public schools.

Granda has opposed several recent parcel tax measures submitted to voters by the Davis school district. Earlier this year, Granda was the primary spokesman for the No School Board Taxes Political Action Committee, which opposed the school parcel tax Measure C in the March 6 vote-by-mail election.

Over the course of that campaign, Granda raised objections to the parcel tax itself, as well as to holding elections on a vote-by-mail basis extending over a period of several weeks rather than the traditional method of ballots being cast in person at a polling place on Election Day. Granda also criticized the salaries paid to senior administrators in the Davis school district.

As part of that Measure C campaign, Granda found himself in a legal dust-up with former Yolo County Clerk-Recorder Tony Bernhard, who went to court objecting to several aspects of the ballot arguments opposing Measure C that Granda had signed. Superior Court Judge Samuel McAdam ultimately ruled that several sentences should be deleted from the ballot argument that Granda had submitted, but McAdam also left intact several other sentences that Bernhard had objected to — something Granda regarded as at least partial vindication.

“It is no secret that I feel the school board has not handled the finances efficiently,” Granda said. “They are running a structural deficit and that needs to be brought under control. The school board needs a fresh change, and I hope to make a contribution towards changing the culture of deficits and endless tax measures. I am up front and will state exactly what I believe, without fear of being politically incorrect.”

Granda completed his undergraduate studies in mechanical engineering at the National Polytechnic School in Quito, Ecuador, in the mid-1970s. He then became a graduate student at UC Berkeley, earning a master’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1976.

Like many local residents, Granda came to town to study at UC Davis, enrolling in 1978 to pursue doctoral studies in mechanical engineering. He completed his Ph.D. in 1982. He was hired to teach at Sacramento State the following year, and has been on the Sac State faculty continuously since that time, with research and teaching at universities abroad during sabbatical years. In 2005, Granda was honored by the UCD College of Engineering with a Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal.

Granda and his wife live in East Davis. They are the parents of several children who are now grown.

The candidate filing period ends Friday at 5 p.m. However, since Harris has indicated that he will not seek a second term, the candidate filing period for the school board will almost certainly get an automatic extension through Wednesday to give what the Yolo County Elections Department describes as “persons other than the incumbent interested in declaring their candidacy” an additional opportunity to enter the fray.

— Reach Jeff Hudson at [email protected] or (530) 747-8055.

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