School Board Hopeful Loses Backing

School board hopeful Christopher Arellano’s troubles deepened Friday when the Los Angeles County Democratic Party angrily withdrew its support for him after learning that he lied about earning a graduate degree from USC.

Arellano, a political novice who is considered a front-runner in Tuesday’s race for an open seat on the seven-member Los Angeles Board of Education, has said repeatedly that he received a dual master’s degree in social work and urban planning from the university. And in at least two campaign fliers mailed to prospective voters, he claimed to have earned “two master’s degrees from USC.”

Documents provided by the university, however, show that although Arellano, 33, was enrolled between 2001 and 2005, he was not awarded either a dual degree or two separate degrees. University officials declined to specify what requirements Arellano had failed to complete.

Arellano declined to be interviewed Friday. In an e-mail sent by a campaign consultant, Arellano said he had completed all the requirements for the social work portion of the dual degree but acknowledged that he had “one semester of coursework” to do before completing the urban planning requirements.

Heather Repenning, Arellano’s consultant, said Arellano thought “it was a kind of formality” that he had not finished the program. In the e-mail, Arellano said he was allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony and had completed the comprehensive exams for the urban planning degree.

Repenning added that Arellano intends to return to USC to complete the courses, but she did not specify when.

Sheriff Lee Baca, who had endorsed Arellano, called on the candidate Friday to withdraw from the race.

“You don’t run for public office and deceive the public as to your qualifications. He should know better, and it’s time for him to honorably withdraw from the process,” Baca said. “To me there’s no margin of error in this sort of thing. It’s wrong to claim you’ve achieved a college degree when you have not. Puffing up your resume unnecessarily is a character issue.”

The controversy surrounding the degrees came after Arellano acknowledged he had twice been convicted of shoplifting in the 1990s.

That revelation did not fracture the broad and powerful base of support Arellano has won in the campaign. United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union that has almost entirely funded Arellano’s campaign, reaffirmed its support for him earlier this week. So did the county Democratic Party and others, saying he had turned his life around after a troubled youth.

But word that Arellano had falsified the USC degrees took a toll. Eric Bauman, chairman of the county’s Democratic Central Committee, said he had ended the group’s support for Arellano, stopping plans for 35,000 automated telephone calls to voters this weekend. Fliers supporting Arellano had already been mailed, he said.

“I asked Christopher if there was anything else that may come out that could embarrass him or the Democratic Party, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘No,’ ” Bauman said.

Later Bauman learned about the university degrees.

Repenning declined to comment on Bauman’s decision.

A.J. Duffy, president of the teachers union, said he was disappointed to learn about Arellano’s false claim. It is unlikely, he said, that there is enough time before Tuesday’s election for an emergency meeting of the 300-member house of representatives, the body that must vote to retract or reaffirm union support for Arellano.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes cast Tuesday, the top two will have a runoff. If Arellano, a union employee, makes it into the June runoff and continues his campaign, Duffy and other officers said, the house of representatives would probably reconsider its support.

“You give full disclosure up front. You do not present things like this after the fact,” said one union officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he was not authorized to speak to the media. “It’s just evidence that this young man is not being upfront, and that’s troubling.”

The union, which has about 45,000 members, has given $200,000 to Arellano -- more than the total raised by any other candidate -- has paid for campaign literature and has sent scores of teachers into the district to drum up support for him.

State Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) said that she, too, was disappointed in Arellano but that she was not withdrawing her support.

“Do I think he has screwed up by doing this? Yes,” she said. “He is a streetwise kid who needs to make the transition to the big leagues. I think he can make that transition, and I think he’ll be very good for the discussions that [school] board is having about kids just like the one he used to be.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Eric Garcetti and state Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) also voiced continued support for Arellano, who used to work for Garcetti as field deputy.

Arellano has described himself as a “troubled young adult,” saying he dropped out of school in eighth grade and lived a poor, difficult existence for years after moving to Los Angeles.

His two convictions included one for what he said was the attempted theft of about $10 in toiletries and another for the attempted shoplifting of a jacket from a Van Nuys department store. Arellano said he was sentenced to a few days in jail for the second offense but that he was given credit for time served. He was ordered to work for 30 days on a California Department of Transportation work crew, which he said he took several years to complete.

Arellano also had to scramble Friday to clear up confusion surrounding his undergraduate degree from UCLA. Until Friday afternoon, his records there were “on hold,” which often indicates that a student has completed the academic requirements but has outstanding loans or other debts to the university, officials said.

Late in the afternoon, university officials announced that the hold had been lifted and confirmed that Arellano had received a bachelor’s degree in theater in 2000. They would not specify why Arellano’s records had been on hold.

Arellano is running against four other candidates for the position that was left vacant when Jose Huizar won a City Council seat.

They include Maria Lou Calanche, who is no longer actively campaigning; Ana Teresa Fernandez, a former Belmont High School student; Monica Garcia, Huizar’s former chief of staff; and Enrique Gasca, who owns a media relations company.

The district stretches from Boyle Heights to Mid-Wilshire and includes Chinatown, Koreatown and the Pico-Union area.

*

Times staff writers Stephen Clark and Stuart Pfeifer contributed to this report.