Judge rules Pomona Unified board member can't use "teacher" in November ballot

LOS ANGELES - A Superior Court judge on Tuesday
said Pomona school board member Andrew Wong can't call himself a teacher in election information or on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Judge James Chalfant ordered Wong be identified on the ballot as a "school board member, Pomona Unified School District."

"I believe that is a valid ballot title," Chalfant said in court.

Three Pomona residents who are also teachers in the district along with the Associated Pomona Teachers sought the court action.

Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's registrar-recorder/county clerk, was named as a respondent in the case and Wong was named an interested party.

Petitioners sought legal action after noticing the use of the term "teacher" in describing Wong in county election materials.

In court documents the teachers said Wong, who works as a lawyer, should be identified as a "lawyer" or "attorney" instead of as a "teacher/school board member."

Tyra Weis, one of the petitioners and president of teachers union, said, after the hearing, legal action was pursued because they believed Wong's description was misleading.

She said many people serve in "a teaching role" although that is not their occupation or what they trained to do in life. The judge's decision brings with it "recognition and respect for the profession." 

Wong, a licensed attorney and a partner in the Los Angeles office of the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, said the ballot title the judge selected was one of his choices when he filed nomination documents with the county.

He said the teachers' action was politically motivated and could have been addressed with a phone call.

"Had they contacted me we would have avoided the time and energy" and the use of the court's time, Wong said.

What teachers have tried to do is "get a monopoly" involving the use of the term teacher "and strengthen their political clout," he said.

Weis said that after noticing Wong's use of "teacher" she and fellow petitioners researched the matter and found legal action was their only option.

The action was taken without seeking political gain, she said.

"It was not done with a plan that would be gaining anything other than an informed electorate," Weis said.

Wong said using the term teacher "helped describe something that I had done."
In the past Wong has said part of his work has involved offering continuing education training to lawyers in his firm.

In a tentative decision Chalfant issued prior to Tuesday's court session, he said, "Wong's principal profession . . . was as an attorney, not teacher, and the word 'teacher' is misleading in his ballot designation."

The fact that Wong used the designation "Educator/Lawyer" on the ballot when he ran in 2005 is "irrelevant" because the job title involves the candidate's occupation for the past year, even though it was misleading, Chalfant wrote.