Attack ads plentiful as more than $5.5 million spent on LAUSD board races
Three seats on the Los Angeles Unified School Board will cost more than $5.5 million by the time ballots are cast Tuesday.
Nearly $1 million of that money will have been spent on attack ads that attempt to misinform voters with revisionist histories and less than honest portrayals.
Board member Tamar Galatzan, who is running for re-election to the District 3 seat representing the western San Fernando Valley, said it’s a “different time” than her first campaign eight years ago.
In the 2007 elections, outside money was controlled by campaigns, she said. Now, Galatzan said, outside groups act without the oversight of candidates they support.
“The thing that’s difficult for me, as a candidate, is not having control over what’s said about me or my opponents,” Galatzan said.
Teachers union-supported groups have spent $82,630 opposing Galatzan’s bid for re-election. A recent flier gives the two-term incumbent an “F” for failing to support students and protect tax dollars — apparently blaming her for a recession that cut revenues prompting layoffs.
Charter school groups that support Galatzan, meanwhile, have spent $141,211 attacking her opponent, Scott Schmerelson.
According to the mailers, the retired LAUSD principal and teacher is actually a lobbyist, responsible for trying to convince legislators they should “increase the already bloated salaries and benefits for administrators, taking money out of the classroom.”
Schmerelson is not a lobbyist. He’s also backed by the teachers union. A political newcomer, Schmerelson said he’s shocked by all the money and lies used in a nonpartisan race for the school board.
“I just can’t believe people would say things that are absolutely not true,” Schmerelson said.
But the most vigorous attack ads were made in efforts to influence voters in areas of Eagle Rock, Echo Park and other neighborhoods inside District 5.
Charter school advocacy groups have spent $554,604 in an effort to oust board member Bennett Kayser and install Ref Rodriguez.
The onslaught started before the primary, when a mailer made the unfounded claim that Kayser tried to stop Latinos from attending “schools in white neighborhoods.” While the stir caused by the mailer prompted Rodriguez to disavow the group “Parent Teacher Alliance in Support of Rodriguez, Galatzan, Vladovic, and McKenna for School Board 2015,” the negative campaigning continues.
Recent attacks portray Kayser as being responsible for the district’s plan to buy $1.3 billion in iPads. Kayser never voted for the contract that sent money to Apple and Pearson — a deal now under federal investigation — because he owned a small amount of stock in Apple. He was also an outspoken critic of the program’s failings.
Meanwhile, groups funded by the teachers union have spent $167,582 attacking Rodriguez. Recent mailers have largely focused on an audit of a charter campus Rodriguez co-founded, Lakeview Charter Academy.
The audit concluded Lakeview Charter Academy, which is one of 16 schools operated by Rodriguez’s Partnership to Uplift Communities, operated in the red and had poor fiscal oversight. According to the attack ads, Rodriguez tried to hide the audit from the public.
The claim is apparently based on the request of a board member that the audit be discussed in closed session prior to its public release. LAUSD General Counsel Dave Holmquist has said such requests are not unusual.
In the South Bay, negative campaigning in the race for District 7 has been limited to $37,549 spent against challenger Lydia Gutierrez. In that district, both charter advocates and unions support Board President Richard Vladovic’s re-election bid.
According to a flier funded by Service Employees International Union Local 99, Gutierrez is a “Tea Party Extremist” who opposes teaching evolution in schools and promotes other beliefs that are commonly part of a conservative agenda.
Gutierrez called the claims made in the flier false and demanded an apology from Local 99.
“Every SEIU Local 99 member should be outraged that their union would attack an individual who is a union member on her personal beliefs and distort the truth,” Gutierrez said in a written statement.Attack ads plentiful as more than $5.5 million spent on LAUSD board races:
