Villegas Hart removed from Napa school board seat due to residency requirement
Julianna Villegas Hart's seat on the Napa Valley Unified School District Board of Education is officially empty.
Julianna Villegas Hart
Julianna Villegas Hart
During a special Tuesday board meeting, NVUSD's remaining trustees unanimously voted to vacate the Trustee Area 7 seat that represents portions of north Napa. At the center of the decision, according to district records, is that Villegas Hart no longer resides in the district.
"As a result, this board does not have any choice," said Mary Hernandez, who serves as the district's general counsel. "There is no discretion. You must declare the seat vacant."
Villegas Hart has not been a resident of Area 7 since at least early February, when a Napa County Superior Court order required her to leave her family home.
According to documents presented to the board, the district first learned of the move on March 30, when Villegas Hart filed a change-of-address form with NVUSD staff, listing a new residence outside of Area 7 boundaries. The following day, Superintendent Rosanna Mucetti wrote to Villegas Hart flagging the issue directly.
Villegas Hart reportedly described the change as temporary. But text messages exchanged with district staff in late April and late May, where she confirmed her mailing address on file, indicated she continued to live outside the trustee area.
A permanent restraining order issued by the Napa court on May 28 further cemented the situation, prohibiting her from coming within 100 yards of her previous address. Since then, according to the district, she has moved into an apartment at Napa Valley College, also outside Area 7.
On Monday, Mucetti sent Villegas Hart a letter informing her that the district had determined her seat had become vacant as a matter of law and that the board would take formal action at a special meeting.
Under California Government Code Section 1770(e), an elected office automatically becomes vacant when a person ceases to be an inhabitant of the area they were chosen to represent. The resolution notes that once that threshold is met, the vacancy is automatic, making Tuesday's vote a formal public acknowledgment of something that has already occurred.
The board now has 60 days under state law to fill the seat by appointment. If no appointment is made within that window, the Napa County superintendent of schools, Joshua Schultz, would step in and make the appointment instead.
The appointed person would serve until the seat can be filled by election, with Villegas Hart's term set to expire in 2028.
According to Hernandez, the district and its elected officials will begin taking steps to fill Villegas Hart's seat at the next regular board meeting on June 11.
In a separate special meeting in late April, the board unanimously censured Villegas Hart following what the district described as an escalating pattern of profane and disruptive behavior toward district staff.
Under the censure, Villegas Hart was stripped of her committee assignments, barred from district campuses and offices, and banned from contacting any district employee except the superintendent. The resolution cited at least four incidents between late March and early April involving Villegas Hart and district staff.
Trustee Robin Jankiewicz, in remarks before the censure vote, framed the action in terms of institutional obligation rather than personal grievance.
"Our board norms are not merely aspirational," Jankiewicz said. "They are the framework that preserves public trust and ensures accountability. When those standards are not upheld, we have an obligation to act."
Villegas Hart did not attend the censure meeting. In an interview that day with the Napa Valley Register, she disputed the characterization of her behavior and directed most of her criticism at Mucetti.
In an email response to the Register, Villegas Hart declined a request for comment.
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