01 / MAY 7, 2026 / THREADS
He announced Mads’s candidacy and urged support.
Medina named Navarro as the incumbent and promoted Mads as her replacement in the Area 7 race.
Read Medina’s May 7 endorsement ↗PVUSD / BOARD ELECTIONEDITORIAL & PUBLIC RECORD
WHY WE OPPOSE MEDINA’S ENDORSEMENT
Medina backs Mads.
Here’s why we object.
Pass this story along
This editorial opposes Medina’s campaign to replace Dr. Misty Navarro with Mads Realmuto. His treatment of women, remarks to Jewish residents and campus confrontation are reasons to scrutinize his endorsement. Read his two appeals below, then go straight to the footage and reporting.
Two endorsements. One troubling record.
TWO DISTINCT ENDORSEMENT POSTS LOCATED02 / SEPTEMBER 6, 2026 / SUBSTACK
He attacked Navarro—and made the case for Mads.
“The choice before Area 7 is between Navarro and Mads.”
In the same article, Medina praises Mads’s integrity, promises Mads will protect student support services and closes by urging readers to replace Navarro with him.
Read Medina’s September endorsement ↗Our view: a vote for Mads is a vote for Medina’s political agenda. Medina is publicly campaigning to replace Navarro with Mads. Electing the candidate he promotes would deliver the result he is asking for. That is why we believe his endorsement should count against Mads—not simply appear as another name on a supporter list. This is our political judgment about his advocacy; it does not establish that he controls Mads’s decisions. The September appeals above come from one article.
A documented history. More than one bad moment.
2025–2026 / FOLLOW THE RECORDThe concern is the pattern over time: the April 2025 remarks to Jewish residents; his reported May 2025 acknowledgment that he called Navarro “Barbie”; a reported legal threat against Navarro and Olivia Flores; and the February 2026 campus restriction after a confrontation with a principal. June meeting captions record further demands to silence Navarro.
Our view: An endorsement asks voters to trust the endorser’s judgment. This history gives us reasons to question Medina’s. Mads should answer for his own positions, including whether he rejects the treatment of colleagues and community members documented here.
See the dated incidents and source links ↓Go straight to the words and actions.
WATCH / READ / CHECK THE CONTEXTHe challenged Jewish residents’ motives for showing up.
JTA reported his rebuke during the ethnic-studies debate. The ADL condemned rhetoric from Medina and Joy Flynn; Medina rejected the antisemitism accusation.
Watch the April 16, 2025 full meeting ↗Read the remarks, condemnation and his response ↓The recording linked by JTA; this link opens the full meeting, not a verified timestamp.Belittling Navarro. Demanding silence. Threatening legal action.
He acknowledged calling Navarro “Barbie.” June meeting captions record demands that she stop speaking and accusations about race. A separate report describes a $35,000 demand against Navarro and Olivia Flores.
June 17 · 5:44:46 · Demand to stop speaking ↗June 24 · 3:46:37 · Microphone remark ↗Read the reported demand against both trustees ↓June excerpts rely on automatic captions; exact wording and speakers have not been independently verified from audio. Full context and caption limitations.His own board restricted his campus access.
A confrontation with a principal following a student walkout led to a reported 14-day restriction and required mediation. Medina denied directing students to leave campus.
Read the board action and disputed accounts ↓The incidents. The sources. His responses.
Personal insults, remarks to Jewish residents, meeting footage, the campus dispute and his posts—followed by a chronological timeline.
“Barbie,” a character attack and a $35,000 demand.
REPORTED ADMISSION & ORIGINAL WRITING“I did call her Barbie.”
Medina · reported May 8, 2025The Pajaronian →
The Pajaronian reports Medina’s acknowledgment that he called Navarro “Barbie.” He claimed provocation. The board rejected censure, 4–2. His reported admission stands even though the board declined to censure him.
“no basic human decency”
Medina on Navarro · September 6, 2026Original Substack article →
His article portrays her as dismissive of parents, including parents of children with special needs. It also invokes “hidden bigots and supremacists” before connecting Navarro’s privilege to escaping accountability. These are his attacks and allegations, not established findings about her.
Our view: Calling a female colleague “Barbie” is chauvinistic and degrading. Denying her basic decency compounds the insult. An elected official should be capable of challenging a colleague’s decisions without humiliating her. Medina’s own words fall far below that standard.
A reported $35,000 demand against the colleagues who sought censure. Good Times reported that Medina threatened a defamation lawsuit against Navarro and Olivia Flores after they sought to censure him, requested $35,000 in damages to avoid litigation, and offered to drop the matter for a public apology. He said the censure allegations were false and harmful to his reputation. The report does not establish that a lawsuit was filed or money paid. Read the May 12 report.
Our view: Attaching a substantial financial demand and a legal threat to colleagues’ attempt to hold him accountable is an intimidating escalation. That judgment is criticism of his response, not a court finding about his claim.
Context: how Medina explains his rhetoric
In his June 20 statement, Medina frames his remarks as criticism of institutional power and accuses Navarro of using formal processes punitively. He also condemns threats. Readers should consider that explanation alongside his actual words. Read his statement.
Jewish residents deserved an answer. They received a rebuke.
APRIL 2025 / REPORTED REMARKS & RESPONSESDuring the April 16, 2025 ethnic-studies debate, Jewish community members raised concerns about renewing a consultant’s contract. Reporting by JTA, published in The Times of Israel, describes Medina challenging their participation in immigration protests and portraying their attendance at school-board meetings as self-interested.
“You only show up to meetings when it’s beneficial for you”
Medina · reported excerpt from April 16, 2025Read the JTA report and surrounding remarks →
The report says he continued by accusing the attendees of telling Brown people who they are. ADL regional director Marc Levine condemned the meeting’s rhetoric as “raw antisemitism” and “abhorrent and dangerous,” and called for an apology. That criticism addressed comments by both Medina and trustee Joy Flynn; the separate claim about Jewish economic power was Flynn’s, not Medina’s.
A warning from the county’s top school official. In an April 23 letter, County Superintendent Faris Sabbah warned that comments at the meeting appeared to invoke antisemitic tropes and could harm the community. He recommended governance, ethics and conflict-resolution training. His letter did not name individual trustees or identify particular remarks. Read Lookout’s report and the linked letter →
Medina’s response: In his May 5 Substack post, he rejected the antisemitism accusation as an effort to discredit him and described the censure effort as political retaliation over ethnic studies. The board subsequently rejected censure, 4–2; it did not adopt the proposed allegations as findings. Read his response → Read the vote outcome →
Our view: Jewish families should not have to demonstrate agreement with a trustee’s wider political agenda to have their school concerns heard. Turning their participation into an accusation of selfishness is exclusionary and irresponsible. Criticism of Israel or support for Palestinian rights does not, by itself, establish antisemitism; the issue here is how an elected official addressed Jewish members of his own school community.
A trustee barred from a school campus.
JANUARY 30–FEBRUARY 11, 2026Students left Pajaro Valley High School during a January 30 protest against federal immigration enforcement. Medina says he cheered them on after encountering them off campus. The dispute then moved onto campus, where he confronted Principal Todd Wilson.
Staff objected. Medina denied directing them.
Staff said outside adults arrived with a megaphone and urged students to leave a planned on-campus rally, undermining their safety arrangements. Their letter also challenged Medina’s public portrayal of the school. Medina denied organizing the walkout, instructing students to leave or telling them where to go; he said they were already walking when he saw them.
Medina was barred from campus for 14 days.
The Pajaronian reports that Medina confronted Wilson over claims that students had been threatened with punishment. Wilson denied those claims. On February 11, the board voted 4–1 for a two-week campus restriction and required mediation. Navarro was among the four votes in favor. Medina opposed the action and disputed its fairness.
The distinction matters: Medina acknowledges supporting students who had left campus. The sources do not establish that he caused them to leave or that the board found him guilty of doing so. The reported restriction followed his confrontation with the principal.
Our view: A trustee should help resolve a school crisis. A confrontation that ends with his own board restricting his campus access reflects a serious breakdown in that responsibility. Supporting student protest does not excuse escalating conflict with school staff.
Hear the exchanges in the full meetings.
2 FULL RECORDINGS · TIMESTAMPED LINKSCaption-based excerpts: These passages appear in speaking turns attributed to Medina by the surrounding dialogue. The automatic captions can merge speakers; voice and exact wording have not been independently verified here. The full recordings are linked so readers can check both the remarks and the preceding points of order.
June 17: “shut up,” then accusations about race
During school-resource-officer questions, the captions include: “Misty, do you need to go back to school to understand what a question is?” and later, “So, can you please shut up and let me get to my questions?”
The exchange continues: At 5:44:55, the captions read “Her white fragility needs to chill out,” followed by “I know you don’t like a black woman being in charge.” At 5:45:04, they include “We’ve already heard your little racist remarks that you made.” These are accusations directed at Navarro during the dispute, not evidence establishing that she holds those views. Intervening captions address “Trustee Medina” and say the discussion is now off topic.
One phrase remains incomplete: At 5:45:11, the automatic caption reads “You white sup” amid overlapping dialogue. We have not independently verified the full phrase or every speaker from the audio, so we do not expand it into a completed quotation.
June 24: a proposal to “muzzle her mic”
During sustainable-schools questions, the captions record a request to silence Navarro’s microphone and a dismissal based on her appointed status. Navarro then describes the treatment as misogynistic and says she feels unsafe. The chair calls a recess.
How the disputes escalated: 2025–2026.
2025–2026MAY 7, 2025
Censure rejected after a bitter board debate
Navarro and Olivia Flores supported the censure; four trustees opposed it. The debate addressed allegations of hostile behavior, including the April 23 closed-session encounter involving the Barbie nickname. The proposed censure was not an adopted finding.
Read Lookout’s reporting →MAY 2025
A reported $35,000 demand
The dispute escalates into a threatened defamation action against the two trustees who sought censure. See the reported demand and Medina’s explanation above.
Read Good Times’ reporting →FEBRUARY 11, 2026
The board restricts campus access
A two-week stay-away letter and required mediation follow the student-walkout dispute and confrontation with the principal.
Read the action and disputed accounts above →MAY 7, 2026
Medina publicly promotes Mads
His Threads post names Navarro as the incumbent and urges support for Mads in the Area 7 race.
Read the original post →JUNE 17 & 24, 2026
Personal exchanges during board business
The captions record belittling and demands to stop speaking during disputes over Navarro’s points of order. Follow the linked timestamps and hear the exchanges in context.
Review the meeting recordings →SEPTEMBER 6, 2026
A personal attack and an electoral appeal
Medina’s Substack article combines attacks on Navarro’s character, accusations about her official conduct and an appeal to elect Mads.
Read the article →This behavior should cost him credibility.
OUR EDITORIAL POSITIONThe harm is concrete: personal humiliation can discourage colleagues from speaking, dismissive treatment can alienate families, and confrontations consume attention that should go to students. Taken together, the incidents documented here give us compelling reasons to question Medina’s judgment and fitness to lead. This is an assessment of his public conduct, not a claim about his mental health or a finding that he poses a physical threat. We believe his endorsement of Mads should count against the candidacy he is promoting.
Mads Realmuto’s platform promises less conflict and respectful governance. Will he unequivocally reject degrading insults and rhetoric that alienates Jewish families—and explain how he would handle disagreement with colleagues and school staff? That is a fair question for a candidate seeking voters’ trust. Read his stated priorities.
Students deserve better. Judge candidates by their own commitments and actions, and ask what their supporters’ conduct says about the standards they are prepared to uphold.
The attacks travel beyond the dais.
Calling for Navarro’s censure
Medina names Navarro and accuses her of provoking colleagues and repeated microaggressions. The same caption appears on both platforms.
Accusing her of ridiculing educators
He alleges the incumbent ridicules teachers and staff behind their backs. The TikTok video labels its subject Misty Navarro. The allegation itself is not proof of the conduct.