Results tagged “Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified” from School Notebook

At an election forum Wednesday night, a question was submitted to moderators that asked two of the challengers running for the Palos Verdes Peninsula school board why they had not voted in past elections in the school district.

The query was based on a review of voting records for Anthony Collatos and Greg Royston, according to the questioner's statement.

Collatos, an education professor at Pepperdine University, appeared slightly dumbfounded in response, saying, "My understanding is that I have voted ... Maybe there was a mistake."

Royston, a business attorney, said that he wasn't sure he was in the district in 2005, and that he had a family emergency in November 2007 and had to leave the country.

The exchange took place at the PV Council of PTAs and the local League of Women Voters forum at the Peninsula Center Library. The debate had some jabs that were a bit nasty between the two incumbents and four challengers, promising a fight that's bound to get messier in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 election. Three seats are set to be filled.

Thing is, my own review of voting records yesterday with a representative of the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk shows that both Collatos and Royston have in fact voted in recent elections.

Collatos voted in November 2005 and in November 2007. Royston voted in Novermber 2005, but not November 2007. They both also voted in May 19 parcel tax election.

Contrary to the questioner's claim, there is no way to know if a given ballot showed marks for a specific election. Because of the privacy of ballots, all the county can say is whether a voter went the polls or submitted an absentee ballot -- NOT whether the voter participated in, for example, a school board election.

Stay tuned for more coverage.

Hi folks. We unfortunately had an error in our story on South Bay elections today.

Barbara Lucky, a board member with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, did file papers on Friday (the last day for incumbents to file) to run for re-election. If re-elected, Lucky would serve her fourth term on the board.

I apologize for the mistake. The county website was not updated with this information until after 6:30 p.m., and we forgot to check for new filers.

This means there are five qualified candidates for three seats on the board: Lucky and incumbent Malcolm Sharp (Ginny Snider has chosen not to run again); Karen Bird, an attorney and wife of Palos Verdes Estates Councilman George Bird; Gregory Royston, also an attorney and a businessman from Rancho Palos Verdes; and Heather Haddon Mattson of Palos Verdes Estates, a former teacher and administrator with Los Angeles Unified who has served as a substitute in schools on The Hill.

Anthony Collatos, a Pepperdine University education professor who lives in Palos Verdes Estates, has pulled papers but has not yet qualified.

Donald Trump's company has completed the purchase of a once-contested piece of property in Rancho Palos Verdes near the ninth and 10th holes of Trump National Golf Club.

Trump's VH Property Corp., which runs the seaside golf course, today completed its payment of $4 million to the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District for an 8.5-acre piece of property refered to as the "Loma del Mar" site.

The payment was part of the terms of a settlement reached in 2004. The agreement, which came after Trump's company sued the school district, required $200,000 in rent for five years and then a $4 million purchase.

Press releases from the school district and Trump follow.

Semi-official results published this afternoon showed Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District's $165 parcel tax won voter approval.

Measure V, which needed a two-thirds vote to pass, won over 68.9 percent of voters, according to the county elections Web site. That was a slight increase from the figure reported at the conclusion of all-mail election on Tuesday night.

More than 43 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

The parcel tax will raised an estimated $3.3 million annually for the school district, which is struggling with state budget cuts. The measure will sunset in 2013.

An estimated 500 to 600 ballots remain to be counted in Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified's all-mail parcel tax election, county officials said this afternoon.

Preliminary results from the election's Tuesday deadline showed the $165 parcel tax passing with 68.6 percent of the vote. Nearly all of the remaining ballots would need to be "no" votes for the measure to fail.

Supporters of the $100,000 campaign in favor of Measure V celebrated last night, though the margin was much more narrow than for the 2007 extension of the existing $209 parcel tax. (See today's story.)

Today, they said they were waiting on final results from the county.

The ballots should be counted by Friday afternoon, when the Department of Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk will make semi-official results available at lavote.net.

Nearly 42 percent of voters cast ballots, according to the preliminary vote total.

The school district is set to hold a board meeting Thursday evening on its budget, which has been slashed following cuts to state education funding.

A meeting scheduled for July 6 will take into account the election results for the parcel tax, which is expected to raise about $3.3 million per year until it sunsets in 2013.

This Thursday's meeting is set for approximately 6:30 p.m. at 3801 Via La Selva, Palos Verdes Estates.

Incidentally, there is apparently some speculation as to whether the the mail-only ballot constituted a "rigging" of the election.

Here's an email I received:

There are some people who think the PV schools election was rigged, because it held unusual circumstances. For instance, you didn't get to vote at a polling place, you had to mail in your
ballot. If you didn't vote via mail you had to physically drop the ballot off at City Hall I believe in PVE.

The question is: was this done to make sure it passed.

In fact, the school district went with an all-mail election to save the cost of a full election -- a move that several other school districts have made this spring. Tuesday's balloting cost the district an estimated $123,000, while a to-the-polls event could have cost nearly $600,000.

Of course, the district hoped to make the terms of the election favorable to a "yes" vote. The school board chose not to hold the election on May 19 to avoid being associated with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's ill-fated budget measures.

Voters in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District should mail their ballots Thursday or Friday, at the latest, to ensure they arrive by Tuesday's mail-only election deadline.

Here's some background on Measure V, the $165 parcel tax, which would raise $3.3 million per year for the high-achieving school district. It comes on top of an existing $209 tax. Both would sunset in 2013.

The district has cut some $6 million from its budget since the state Legislature ordered broad cuts to education with its February budget. The governor's newest budget proposal -- which seems to be losing out to the budget committee's version -- would cut more than $6 million more, district officials have said.

More than 200 employees have received pink slips. District Superintendent Walker Williams said "several dozen" teachers could be rehired if the ballot measure passes.

But Measure V comes at a time when many of the district's 41,229 registered voters (according to the county registrar) are feeling the pain of the recession.

A parcel tax is leading by a hair in South Pasadena, which is one of several mostly wealthy areas where education agencies are seeking parcel taxes to make up for state cuts.

Some interesting thoughts on parcel taxes in a blog post today from one the LA Times' editorial board members.

Voters on The Hill can drop off their ballots on Tuesday. More information on ballots and voting after the jump.