2 Santa Ana School Board Incumbents Hold Lead Over Ex-Policeman, 2 Latinos

Mary J. Pryer and James A. Richards, the two incumbents on the Santa Ana Unified School District Board, were leading three top challengers, including two Latinos, according to unofficial returns late Tuesday.

With better than 50% of the precincts reporting, the closest challenger to Pryer and Richards was Robert B. Palmer, a retired Santa Ana police lieutenant.

Although all seven candidates seeking two seats on the five-member board had campaigned hard, a low voter turnout was apparently working in favor of the two incumbents.

Two candidates, Louisa Pedroza Solis and Emilio De La Cruz, both Mexican-American, had hoped to become the first Latinos to win a seat on the board since 1978.

However, they and and another Latino, Cuban-born Samuel Nodarse, were trailing in early returns, unofficial vote totals showed.

Many Minority Students

Santa Ana Unified, with a school district that is nearly three-fourths Latino, has Orange County’s highest concentration of minority schoolchildren.

Most of the district’s growth has come from Mexican and Southeast Asian immigrants. Last year, 69.7% of the school enrollment was Latino, 15% non-Latino whites, 11% Asian or Pacific Islanders, 4.2% black and 0.1% American Indians.

Only a handful of minority residents have ever won seats on the board. Only two Latinos and two blacks have been on the board in recent years, including current board member Sadie Reid, who is black.

De La Cruz and Solis said they had campaigned hard for votes, relying mostly on grass-roots, door-to-door campaigns but also holding fund-raisers and seeking endorsements

Victory Predicted

Before the polls closed, an anxious De La Cruz acknowledged incumbent Pryer’s voter strength but predicted that he had a good chance of becoming the first Latino to serve on the board in recent years.

“I’m gonna win. I’ve been nervous all day. But I think I’m gonna win,” De La Cruz said in a voice hoarse from talking.

De La Cruz, who coordinates a program for economically disadvantaged students at Rancho Santiago Community College, and Solis, a school secretary, said they had been walking precincts at night and weekends, trying to meet as many voters as possible.

By contrast, Pryer and Richards had asked David C. Markovitz, who lost a bid for school board in 1983, to serve as their volunteer campaign manager.

‘Fundamental’ Schools

Markovitz, who along with Pryer and Richards supports so-called “fundamental” schools, helped organize two candidate debates during the campaign. Both were attended predominantly by parents whose children attend such schools, which stress discipline in the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic.

In the previous school board election, De La Cruz ran unsuccessfully against a large field of candidates that included three other Latinos. Two new liberal board members, James Ward and Sadie Reid, won that year, as did Joan Wilkinson.

Each of the three board members made endorsements this year: Wilkinson endorsed challenger Robert Palmer, Ward supported Palmer and Solis, and Reid favored De La Cruz and Palmer.

Solis said Tuesday that she went to her normal job selling insurance at an automobile club but only after some last-minute campaigning.

“I woke up at 6 a.m. and was calling people on the telephone until 9,” Solis said. “I had my whole family telephoning their friends and telling them to go and vote.”