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Dear Green Friends,
<br>
<br>
Good News. The Los Angeles Times endorsed Nancy Pearlman for reelection
to the community colleges board of trustees. In the editorial they admitted
supporting the Establishment<font size="2"> </font>"reform" candidate in the primary, but that Nancy is superior
to the Democratic Party Machine Hack in the general election.
<blockquote style="color: green; font-weight: bold"><em>
She speaks with deep knowledge about the district's foibles and needs,
and correctly identifies its most urgent challenge: providing students with
better and more efficient remedial education.
She has been more apt than most of her colleagues on the board to challenge the status quo,
including some of the bond expenditures.
</em></blockquote>
Yes! That is exactly what we want people to think about the GP in
One-Party-Democratic Los Angeles<font size="2"> (and One-Party Democratic San Jose and One-Party Democratic Oakland and ... )</font>. Has the L.A. Times ever endorsed a GP candidate before?
This is good and it also shows how, sometimes, the "Top Two" primary can work for us.
<br>
<br>
Alex Walker<br>
Los Angeles Greens
<br>
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<br>
<strong>Published by The Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2013</strong><br>
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-end-community-college-seat-6-20130410,0,5687522.story">
<strong>Nancy Pearlman for college seat</strong>
</a><br>
<img src="http://alexcathy.com/images_greening/nancy_pearlman.jpg" alt="Nancy Pearlman" border="none" width="250px"><br>
<strong>
By The Times editorial board
</strong>
<br>
<br>
The Los Angeles Community College District's Seat 6 was the only one
with an incumbent candidate running in the March elections. It was also
the most vigorously contested of the three races. Perhaps in the wake of
The Times' 2011 series exposing waste and ethical lapses in the
district's expenditure of billions of dollars of bond money on new
construction, opponents sensed that longtime board member Nancy
Pearlman, one of the building program's main advocates, was vulnerable.
<br>
<br>
That was especially true after David Vela, an aide to Assemblyman Roger
Hernandez (D-West Covina), won the support of the major labor groups.
Bolstered by that support, Vela received more votes than Pearlman, but
neither came close to the majority needed to avoid a runoff.
<br>
<br>
The Times had endorsed Tom Oliver, the articulate and hard-charging
former president of Pierce College, in the first round. But with Oliver
out of the running, Pearlman is the better choice of the two remaining
candidates. She speaks with deep knowledge about the district's foibles
and needs, and correctly identifies its most urgent challenge: providing
students with better and more efficient remedial education. She has
been more apt than most of her colleagues on the board to challenge the
status quo, including some of the bond expenditures. She should continue
to voice her concerns. Too few of the district's 141,000 students reach
their goals, and there are nearly perpetual accreditation problems at
one college or another; this board can't afford complacency.
<br>
<br>
Vela is an affable candidate but one with too little understanding of
the task ahead. He speaks with justifiable pride about initiatives in
the Montebello school district -- such as a small, successful academy
that guides students toward careers, and an anti-bullying program -- but
these minor accomplishments are dwarfed by the systemic reforms
required at the colleges, such as state-mandated counseling to help more
students complete their academic or career training.
<br>
<br>
One of Vela's key campaign issues has been a vow to cut administrative
costs, a common mantra of teachers unions. It might be possible to make
more cuts, but that's not the district's top priority right now. Indeed,
some of the reforms required by a recently passed state law -- such as
better tracking of students' progress -- might well justify increased
administrative costs.
<br>
<br>
It's worth noting that the campaign for Seat 6 -- candidates run for
particular seats though the elections are at-large -- demonstrates why a
new law governing community college elections was a mistake. The law
allows districts to skip runoffs, so that the top vote-getter wins the
seat even if his or her victory falls dramatically short of a majority.
The Los Angeles district has not adopted the law as policy yet, and it
shouldn't. Voters tend to pay scant attention to these elections and,
faced with a crowded field for a single seat, have too little
opportunity to make an informed choice.
<br>
<br>
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