Results tagged “election” from School Notebook

Maritza Molina, Hugo Rojas and incumbent Rocio Pizano are leading the race for three open seats on the Centinela Valley Union High school District Board of Trustees.

With nine precincts reporting, Molina leads Frank Talavera with 51 percent of the vote, Rojas leads Rudy Salas with 57 percent of the vote and Pizano leads Susie Diaz and Jessica Felix with 43 percent of the vote.

In Torrance, Mark Steffen, Al Muratsuchi and Michael Wermers are leading with one precinct reporting.

Steffen has 25 percent of the vote, Muratsuchi has 24.5 percent and Wermers has 17 percent. Kathleen Wood is coming in with 14 percent, G. Rick Marshall has 11 percent and Sameer Bhavnani has two percent.

Kevin Bellenfant, who dropped out early in the race, has six percent of the vote.

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.

Ben Austin, who last year was forced out of the race for the Los Angeles school board's Westside seat, has sued the political consultant he blamed when he was booted from the ballot.

Austin filed suit against Sue Burnside and her company Burnside & Associates on Tuesday -- election day -- alleging breach of oral contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.

In the complaint, Austin calls himself the "leading candidate for a position on the Los Angeles School Board, who had already amassed a healthy war chest of campaign funds, and a 'who's who' list of endorsements."

Austin had been expected to be a front-runner for the seat that Steve Zimmer has apparently won. As head of Green Dot-affiliated Los Angeles Parents Union, Austin would have been a reform-focused candidate. He has said he expected the endorsement on L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- and the complaint states that he had the mayor's backing, among that of other heavy-hitters.

He alleges that Burnside farmed out signature-gathering work to Robert Urteaga, a consultant and Montebello councilman with a felony conviction who is currently the target of a recall campaign. The signatures were gathered in the incorrect board district, disqualifying Austin, Los Angeles officials have said.

"It was a stinging defeat that has tarnished the plaintiff's reputation," the complaint reads.

Urteaga, who according to the suit told Austin that he had in turn farmed out signatures gathering, was also a target of the suit. He could not immediately be reach for comment.

Burnside has said that Austin was not her client, she never agreed to a contract with him and has never met him.

"An independent contractor misrepresented himself - without my knowledge or approval - as an employee of Burnside & Associates when he agreed to collect the signatures for Mr. Austin," Burnside wrote in an email to friends and media when Austin was disqualified in December.

She said this morning that she had not been served with the complaint and thus would not comment on the lawsuit.

Austin is seeking damages in an amount to be determined at trial.

Zimmer wrapped it up, with the generous help of United Teacher Los Angeles.

Unofficial results from the Los Angeles City Clerk show Zimmer with 56.13 percent to Mike Stryer's 43.87 percent in the election for Los Angeles Unified's Westside board seat.

Those figures do not include results from the city of West Hollywood or the small portions of Calabasas and Beverly Hills that vote in District 4. Los Angeles officials are also still counting provisional ballots, mail-in ballots that arrived on Tuesday and ballots with "snags."

In a post-mortem posted online this morning, the Los Aneles Times' Howard Blume takes a look at conflicts among the groups that supported Zimmer - especially UTLA, L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the charter school contingent.

The union, in other words, accepted Zimmer's efforts to collect supporters whose priorities conflict with those of the union. With about 150 charter schools in Los Angeles -- and more on the way -- Zimmer was responding to a new political reality.

"In this campaign, every time someone would come on board, it would send some shock waves to other folks," Zimmer said, "because they weren't folks that usually worked together. But if this district is going to make it, everybody has got to pull together."

On this round, the real political tug of war was destined not to occur at the ballot box but in the aftermath.

A little over $85,000 has been raised in the two-man race to replace Marlene Canter on Los Angeles Unified's Board of Education, according to city campaign finance records.

Monday was the deadline for candidates to file records of contributions received through Dec. 31.

Mike Stryer has raised $53,000 to Steve Zimmer's approximately $32,000.*

Both men are white LAUSD high school teachers. They're vying to represent a diverse district that runs from Westchester into Hollywood and up past Pacific Palisades into Woodland Hills. The race has changed significantly since contender Ben Austin dropped out last month after a signature-gathering fiasco.

Incumbent Monica Garcia, who is unchallenged in her bid to retain representation of downtown-centered District 2 -- has raised about $107,000.

In District 6, in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, the two candidates seeking to replace Julie Korenstein have raised significantly less -- about $23,000. Louis Pugliese, who has run for a board seat before, has far outpaced San Fernando Mayor Nury Martinez, who has just $1,500.

*Digging a little deeper, I see that Stryer loaned himself $30,000. A notable portion of his contributions come from outside the district -- other parts of California and outside the state. Also: Actress Ricki Lake gave him $250.

Most of Zimmer's contributions are from L.A., and a striking number are from LAUSD teachers and other employees. (Not surprising, perhaps, since he's got UTLA's endorsement.)

Generally speaking, it looks like Stryer, who has a background in business, has a lot more high-income donors -- at least surmising based on their job titles.

OK, I hope this is the last time I post on this situation with former LAUSD board candidate Ben Austin and the voter-signature debacle.

Consultant Sue Burnside, who runs the political consultancy that Austin said he hired to gather signatures, denies her firm had anything to do with it. She said in a statement issued Friday that an independent contractor claimed to represent her firm as a signature gatherer.

Burnside's statement is below, followed by a letter from Austin to his supporters on his exit from the campaign, in which he writes that the wrong signatures were collected "by accident."

A second candidate hopeful in the race to replace Marlene Canter on the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education has been knocked out of the race after failing to file enough voter signatures.

Bill Ring, a parent activist, was 52 signatures short of the 500 needed to run for the Westside board seat, city election officials said. The Los Angeles City Clerk's office made the finding of "insufficient" for Ring's nominating petition on Wednesday.

The news comes after well-connected politico Ben Austin was kicked out of the race on Monday, also for failing to come up with enough voter signatures.

Austin blamed the political consultancy that he had hired, Burnside & Associates, for gathering signatures in the wrong board district. Firm head Susan Burnside -- who's been active in Los Angeles politics for 20 years -- has since said that she is looking into the matter. She added that she has been out of the country for a month and has never met Austin.

With Austin and Ring out of the race, only two candidates are left. Both are teachers.

Steve Zimmer, a teacher at Marshall High School with an activist background, received the endorsement of United Teachers Los Angeles. Mike Stryer is a teacher at Fairfax High School with a background in business.

Both had begun fundraising before Sept. 30, according to their filings with the City Ethics Commission.