Election 2026: Tam Union board member Kevin Saavedra resigns day after restraining order, stays on ballot
Tamalpais Union High School District board member Kevin Saavedra resigned Oct. 9, a day after a judge ordered him to stay away from a district parent he had cursed at in emails — yet he stays on the Nov. 3 ballot for a third term.
Saavedra, the board’s clerk, quit in a letter emailed that Friday to Superintendent Courtney Goode and board President Cynthia Roenisch, effective immediately, the Redwood Bark, Redwood High’s student newspaper, first reported. The letter does not mention the court order or name anyone.
“The most recent cycle has been tumultuous,” Saavedra wrote. “In service of this volunteer position I would not have expected I would be told I am to withstand personal and sometimes racist attacks. Or doxing. Or stalking. The abuse has been draining and I have had enough.”
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He told the Bark he “would not bet” on taking the seat if he is reelected.
Also Oct. 9 the district announced that Roenisch had proposed censuring Saavedra “for his unprofessional and aggressive communications directed toward a district parent.” The motion is on the board’s 6 p.m. Oct. 13 agenda. Whether it would go forward was not known at The Ark’s press deadline.
The five-member board governs Redwood High in Larkspur, which most Tiburon Peninsula high schoolers attend.
A three-year order
Marin County Superior Court Judge Mark A. Talamantes granted the three-year civil harassment restraining order Oct. 8, barring Saavedra, 55, from any contact with Ina Gotlieb, a 56-year-old college admissions counselor, or her child, a student at one of the district’s two alternative high schools.
Gotlieb petitioned Sept. 28, citing some 10 months of emails and videos from Saavedra.
The dispute began last November at a board meeting on putting the Tamiscal and San Andreas alternative schools on one campus, where Roenisch held dozens of speakers, many of them students, to one minute each. That night Gotlieb emailed Roenisch, calling her an expletive and a “sad old woman.” Roenisch did not reply but forwarded the email to Saavedra. Gotlieb later apologized to Roenisch.
Saavedra then emailed Gotlieb from his district account, telling her to “go f— yourself you stupid old crone.” More emails followed, including one from his campaign account and another saying he was asking her neighbors about her, along with YouTube videos criticizing her.
The order requires him to take down the videos and bars him from possessing firearms. At the 30-minute hearing Talamantes called Saavedra’s use of his district account an “abuse of power” and reprimanded him for photographing Gotlieb in the courtroom, according to media reports.
Saavedra told the court he sent the emails after two years of what he described as abusive personal attacks on him and his colleagues over contentious board decisions, the reports said.
Still on the ballot
The resignation came too late to change the ballot. Saavedra filed for reelection July 31, and state law bars school board candidates from withdrawing after the 88th day before an election, which this year was Aug. 7. Marin began mailing ballots Oct. 5.
Seven candidates are running for three four-year seats: incumbents Roenisch and Saavedra and challengers Leslie Harlander, a former two-term board member; Joy Scully Koo; Maria Sandoval; Brian Sutherland; and Valerie Wynn.
Saavedra’s current term ends Dec. 11, when board members elected Nov. 3 take office. If he wins and declines the new term, the seat would fall vacant once that term begins, and the board would have 60 days to appoint someone or call a special election.
Saavedra, of San Anselmo, was first elected in 2018, when the district faced a county warning it could become insolvent. At a Sept. 28 League of Women Voters forum, he defended the board’s financial record under Goode.
“I reject the notion that we have lost the trust of the community,” he said.
Reach Executive Editor Kevin Hessel at 415-435-2652.