Sunol Glen School Board President Ryan Jergensen decided not to pursue a full restraining order against former school board trustee Denise Kent Romo after the temporary protection order granted by the court expired without further action two weeks ago.
Jergensen said he made the decision to not pursue a permanent order and to allow the judge-approved temporary restraining order to lapse after one of Kent Romo’s lawyers threatened further litigation leading up to the court hearing on the potential full order on Nov. 15.
“I received a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Denise Kent-Romo after she spread lies and misinformation about me online, which I believe led directly to the death threats against my wife, my children and me,” Jergensen said in a statement released to local media via the communications firm CM Public Affairs, which Jergensen has been using for several months now.
“In response to the court granting a TRO against her, Denise hired a large Los Angeles law firm to represent her,” Jergensen added in his statement. “Denise’s Los Angeles-based attorney threatened me with lawsuits designed to put extreme financial pressure on my family.”
Jergensen, who represented himself in court, said that Kent Romo’s attorneys from the firm Bradley, Bernstein, Sands LLP – which, contrary to what Jergensen said, is based in Oakland, not Los Angeles – promised further litigation if he did not drop the request for a full restraining order.
But Kent Romo, who denies Jergensen’s allegations, told the Weekly that is not the truth.
She pointed out that Jergensen voluntarily withdrew the restraining order and said that she was in fact vehemently opposed to the temporary restraining order and was prepared to challenge him on every allegation, which is where she thinks Jergensen got the idea of any lawsuit threats.
“My attorneys and I said that we would oppose the TRO and move to strike via an anti-SLAPP motion,” Kent Romo said.
She did, however, say that she is pursuing financial compensation for legal fees “because we were forced to oppose his meritless case and because of the hardship I’ve been forced to endure since he launched a smear campaign against me.”
“I don’t know if he was expecting me to just roll over when faced with these atrocious accusations, I’m obviously going to go and refute them,” Kent Romo said. “I’m going to hire an expert for guidance on how to proceed … he was accusing me of death threats, that is a very serious accusation and I’m certainly going to respond.”
Kent Romo served on Sunol Glen Unified School District Board of Trustees from 2016 to 2021 before resigning midterm for health reasons. Jergensen was appointed to fill her vacant seat on a temporary basis before winning a full term of his own in the November 2022 election – at which time Kent Romo’s husband, Peter “Ted” Romo, also won a seat on the school board.
After the contentious Sept. 12 board meeting, where Jergensen and Trustee Linda Hurley voted in the 2-1 majority to approve a resolution that limits SGUSD to only displaying the official flags of the United States and the state of California, things started to get heated between the two after Kent Romo emailed Jergensen congratulating him on his “immense failure as a leader.”
“Now that I’ve said that, will I find proud boys at my door to attack me in your honor? Are those your friends? Because it appears so. That was the most repulsive meeting that I have ever attended,” Kent Romo stated in that Sept. 13 email to Jergensen.
She went as far to allege that both majority trustees were affiliated with hate groups such as Moms for Liberty and Gays for Groomers, two well-known organizations that are labeled by the Anti-Defemation Leauge as anti-LGBTQ+ extremist coalitions, to which Jergensen responded saying he was hurt and fearful.
Kent Romo had also made statements on Facebook and in editorials online where she criticized Jergensen and in one case advocated for a recall. Both of those were reasons Jergensen had filed for a restraining order on Sept. 18.
“I firmly believe that Denise’s libelous words incited people to make death threats towards my children, my wife and me — which is why I was able to secure a TRO from the Alameda County Court,” Jergensen said.
But Kent Romo argued that is simply not true.
“I never threatened Ryan, or his family. Never,” Kent Romo said. “I think he was trying to make a correlation between my speaking out against him, and political speech against him as a trustee, to threats that were anonymous and not related to me at all.”
According to the rebuttal letter filed by Kent Romo’s lawyers to the court on Nov. 9, apart from asking people if they are ready for a recall, Kent Romo only alleged potential ties between Jergensen, Hurley and outside hate groups who have been present at some of the contentious board meetings in September and October, and even before then.
“I emailed Ryan back in May, to say that members of extremist groups like Moms for Liberty are starting to show up at Sunol Glen board meetings,” Kent Romo said. “They brought hateful rhetoric and conspiracy theories to the discussions and his response to me was to call me unkind for suggesting such a thing. He has not ever stood up to condemn groups like this that show up at the meetings.”
That’s why Kent Romo’s attorney said that none of her statements threatened physical harm toward Jergensen or requested that others harm him, as he had originally said was another basis for his restraining order claim.
”Rather, Mr. Jergensen’s complaints largely surround emails and comments made at public hearings wherein Ms. Kent Romo strongly disagreed with Mr. Jergensen’s vote in favor of removing Pride flags from Sunol Unified School District properties,” according to the Nov. 9 rebuttal letter. “Such communications, however emotional or strongly felt, are within the core communications protected by the First Amendment as well as Article 1 of the California Constitution and cannot be the basis of a restraining order absent actual threats of violence.”
It also claims instead that when Jergensen appeared on Fox News to discuss the matter, it resulted in “numerous hateful and otherwise obscene messages” being sent to Kent Romo.
Kent Romo added to that saying Jergensen’s logic for filing a restraining order against her because relating threats coming from other people to her doesn’t make sense and even if it did, she said she should be able to do the same thing after his “media blitz” that brought similar threats and messages to her.
The letter also states that Kent Romo was never inside the Sept. 12 board meeting room where Jergensen states was the day the harassment from her started and that she never verbally attacked him at any other previous board meeting — contrary to Jergensen’s claim.
Jergensen maintains that he voluntarily dropped the restraining order “without prejudice in order to try and resolve the situation and move our community forward” and said he is aware that Kent Romo’s lawyers stated that they might seek financial compensation.
But that aside, he said that the political back-and-forth in the community since the Sept. 12 meeting has been a shame to see.
“I joined the Sunol Glen School Board to improve our community, stand-up for kids and parents and work to create a safe and excellent place of learning for all of our students — my kids included,” Jergensen said. “It is a shame that a small group of people — both inside and outside our community — feel the need to play brass-knuckle legal and political games in an effort to divide our small town. In spite of the threats, I will continue to stand up for all of our students, parents and residents.”
Kent Romo, on the other hand, said that while she believes it has been a dark time for the Sunol community, seeing people come together to oppose hateful, political rhetoric from Jergensen and Hurley has been inspiring. She added that apart from seeking financial compensation for her lawyer fees, she will not stop fighting to get Sunol back to how it once was — inclusive and against hate.
“There’s a group of us working really, really hard right now, to heal the community. To fix what is wrong with it at the moment,” she said. We are going to keep trying to move forward because there are a lot of good people in this community and there are a lot of people that believe in standing up to hate standing up to injustice.”
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