La Cañada school board head eyes Gatto seat
Andrew Blumenfeld, president of the La Cañada Unified School District Governing Board, has announced his plans to run for California’s 43rd Assembly District in 2016.
News traveled through social media sites this weekend as people visited his nascent campaign page, andrew4assembly.com, though Blumenfeld said Tuesday he’d been thinking of running for some time.
“This has been something I’ve been discussing with close personal friends and people I know personally for awhile,” he said. “It just seems the trend in California is for people to make these announcements very early on.”
Blumenfeld throws his hat in the ring alongside Glendale City Councilwoman Laura Friedman and Glendale City Clerk Ardashes Kassakhian, who announced their plans to run last month. All three candidates will be running as Democrats.
Rep. Mike Gatto (D-Glendale), who’s represented the 43rd district since 2010, will term out of the position and cannot run for reelection.
While the election itself is still nearly two years away, Blumenfeld said he hopes to make statewide education improvements a primary focus of his campaign. In addition to his three years of experience on the La Cañada school board, he teaches low-income students at Los Angeles’ Crown Preparatory Academy through the nonprofit Teach For America.
“There can be no question my primary aim here is to be able to really engage our assembly district in the vital work of reimagining what our legislature can do to support, rather than obstruct, serving our state’s children,” he said.
Blumenfeld said that he does not plan to seek reelection when his four-year term on the La Cañada Unified board ends this December, so that he can focus solely on his assembly campaign.
Former LCUSD school board member Cindy Wilcox said she was introduced to the La Cañada High School graduate in 2010, when he asked to interview her for a paper he was writing about teacher contracts as an undergraduate student at Princeton.
“It became clear he knew more about teacher contracts than people sitting on the [LCUSD] board,” said Wilcox, who would help him campaign for a spot on the local school board the following year.
She praised Blumenfeld’s ability to operate at both the microscopic and visionary levels.
Thom Martin, director of youth development for the YMCA of the Foothills, said he recognized Blumenfeld’s leadership potential in 2008, when Blumenfeld, then a high school junior, successfully campaigned to serve as the 61st Youth Governor in the Y’s Youth in Government program, presiding over 2,500 high-school delegates.
“He swept into the governor’s office and was a populist governor. He was very charismatic,” Martin recalled.
While the road to the 43rd district is a long one, Blumenfeld said he’s beginning to think of how he wants to handle the campaign. He promises it won’t be one of sound bites, but of substance.
“My strategy is to speak to as many people as I possibly can,” he said. “I want to be, as I was when I ran for school board, in people’s living rooms, talking about what my vision is, but also talking to them about what their vision is. That’s always been a very important thing to me.”
