Conservatives Elected to Corona-Norco School Posts

Voters in the Corona-Norco Unified School District elected what appears to be a conservative majority to the Board of Education on Tuesday.

With all 55 precincts reporting, incumbent Louis VanderMolen, Karen C. Stein and Charles H. Carter were the top vote-getters for three seats on the district board. Incumbent Peg Schumate finished fifth, and a third incumbent, Margaret Jameson, did not seek reelection.

During the campaign, VanderMolen, Stein and Carter all expressed support for conservative educational policies, with Stein putting particular emphasis on discipline issues.

Dress Code Favored

“I want to have dress codes and discipline enforced in all the schools,” Stein, a Corona resident, said.

Both VanderMolen, Norco’s only representative on the board, and Carter, a Corona attorney, support the district’s “fundamental school,” and both have indicated they will support further measures to emphasize basic education.

“VanderMolen has been a voice crying in the wilderness,” Carter said late Tuesday. “I don’t know how Stein feels, but VanderMolen and I agree on philosophy.”

The election “means that you have a more conservative board,” he added.

The new board will also stand a better chance of breaking an impasse with the City of Corona over fees that the city charges residential developers to finance new school construction, Carter said.

Talks between the school board and the city on those “mitigation fees” broke off in the spring, and the City Council responded by enacting a flat fee of $2,610 per dwelling unit, based on its own projections of increasing school enrollment in the district.

The district had requested a variable fee schedule--based on the square footage of each home--averaging $4,054 per unit.

Now, Carter suggested, he and VanderMolen may be able to persuade other school board members to take the first step toward an agreement with the city.

Alternatives Suggested

Both Stein and Carter suggested during the campaign that the school district should consider alternatives to mitigation fees, such as allowing developers to donate land or to build school facilities for the district.

At polling places throughout the Corona-Norco area Tuesday, election workers lamented what appeared to be shaping up as a very low turnout.

“It seems most of (the voters) are related to, or friends of, the candidates,” said Lorraine Cameron, who has worked in the same Corona precinct for 25 years.

A polling place at the Norco fire station “had a big lunch rush” of one voter, said Debra De Los Rios, a worker there.

Many election workers suggested future school board elections should be rescheduled to coincide with races that attract more voters, both to save money and to foster greater participation.

“I really think they should try to have these board of education elections at the same time they have congressional or senatorial elections,” said Marie Grimes, an election inspector at Fire Station No. 1 in eastern Corona.

College District Vote

Voters in the Corona-Norco area also helped choose two board members for the Riverside Community College District.

“Very few Corona voters seem to know about the Riverside Community College District,” Grimes noted.

The college district, which operates Riverside City College, stretches from the Orange and San Bernardino county lines east past Moreno Valley and south to Lake Perris and Glen Ivy Hot Springs.

Incumbents Frances Nelson and Wilfred J. Airey, both of Riverside, defeated seven challengers to retain their seats on the community college board.

Voters also decided that the Riverside County superintendent of schools will remain elective.