L.A. School Board’s Walters, Goldberg Lead Pack in Vote

Los Angeles school board incumbents Rita Walters and Jackie Goldberg took strong leads in Tuesday’s balloting despite opposition from United Teachers-Los Angeles, the teachers union.

A third incumbent, John Greenwood, was locked in a tight race with challenger Warren Furutani.

In the Los Angeles community college board elections, incumbent Harold W. Garvin of San Pedro appeared headed for reelection, but a second incumbent, Monroe F. Richman, was trailing two challengers in his bid for a fifth term.

The college board’s only black member, Marguerite Archie-Hudson, led two union-backed challengers but was in danger of being forced into a June runoff.

The college teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers College Guild, supported Garvin but opposed the other two incumbents.

Altogether, five seats were being contested on the school board and four on the community college board.

Test of Union’s Clout

Some Los Angeles school insiders believed that the school board primary election was a test of UTLA’s political clout against incumbents who incurred its wrath.

Walters, 56, thought to be in her toughest political fight, was well ahead of Mark Ridley-Thomas, the union’s candidate, and two other challengers.

Walters told reporters before Tuesday’s election that she regarded the union as “my “real opponent.”

As the votes came in, Francis Heywood, a union vice president, said it was unfortunate “if people perceive that is what it is--that UTLA is trying to take over” the school board.

Walters claimed victory late in the evening and said it was a time to patch up differences with UTLA.

“We must begin a healing process with our friends and neighbors who supported one or another candidate,” she said. “It’s a victory for our children.”

According to election laws, a candidate who gains a majority of the vote is the outright winner. If no one wins a majority, the two top vote-getters in each race will hold a runoff June 2.

In other school board races, Goldberg held a comfortable lead over businessman Tony Trias. In the western San Fernando Valley, UTLA-supported Julie Korenstein and conservative Barbara Romey led a pack of seven candidates, but a runoff appeared a certainty.

In the campaign for an open seat on the Eastside, Letitia Quezada, holding a strong lead over her closest opponent, Raul Ruiz, claimed victory.

“Now the real work begins . . .,” she told cheering supporters.

In the at-large races for community college board seats, Garvin was ahead of two challengers in his bid for a third term.

Runoff Seen

Richman, meanwhile, was in third place behind Los Angeles attorney Wallace Knox and Los Angeles Trade Tech instructor Patricia Hollingsworth in a race that appeared headed for a runoff.

USC professor David Lopez-Lee and former Los Angeles school board member Richard E. Ferraro were leading a field of seven candidates in the race to succeed Quezada, who gave up her college board seat to run for the school board.

In the fourth race, Archie-Hudson was ahead of the two candidates the union had backed, librarian-educator Julia L. Wu and retired professor Bernard Friedman.

UTLA poured in volunteers and nearly $35,000 in the primary election campaign to unseat Walters and Greenwood, who were each seeking third terms on the school board.

The teachers union endorsed challengers Ridley-Thomas and Furutani because of the incumbents’ role in the stalled pay negotiations. The teachers, still working at last year’s pay levels, are seeking a 14% pay increase for the current school year. The school board’s best offer has been a 10% raise retroactive only to November.

Walters and Greenwood also infuriated the teachers union by opposing a last-minute UTLA demand during the pay talks that all of the Los Angeles district’s teachers, not just members of the union, be required to pay an “agency fee” to UTLA because the union represents all teachers in contract negotiations. Of the system’s 26,000 teachers, about 6,000 are not members of the union.

“I opposed it because I have a responsibility to all of the teachers, not just UTLA members who have supported me in the past,” Greenwood said.

Although the union also opposed Goldberg, it did not actively support her principal opponent, Trias, in District 3, which includes downtown Los Angeles, Echo Park and Hollywood.

In Ridley-Thomas and Furutani, the teachers found two energetic challengers who were willing to go on the offensive against the incumbents.

Taking on Walters in District 1 was no small task, considering that she was elected four years ago with 91% of the vote.

Ridley-Thomas, 32, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, attacked her for low achievement scores at five area high schools in the Southwest and South-Central Los Angeles district and for “losing touch” with area parents and community groups.

The incumbent replied, however, that Ridley-Thomas was not representative of the many area parents who supported her candidacy. Walters said she deserved reelection, citing her advocacy of busing to achieve desegregation in spite of widespread opposition and her authorship of the “C-average” rule, which requires students to pass all of their classes in order to participate in sports and other after-school activities.

Greenwood Criticized

In District 7, which stretches from the harbor area north to Watts, Furutani, 39, criticized incumbent Greenwood for adding to the public rancor over the pay negotiations. Although endorsed by UTLA, Furutani stopped short of advocating a full 14% pay raise, saying only that he favored a “double-digit” increase.

In recent weeks, Greenwood counterattacked, claiming that Furutani exaggerated his job credentials at UCLA, where he is a program coordinator in the Asian American Studies Center. Greenwood claimed that the job carries no administrative duties, and Furutani insisted that it does. Greenwood also cited his work in supporting anti-gang and suicide-prevention programs in the schools.

In the wide-open race in the western San Fernando Valley’s District 4, UTLA backed Korenstein, but the endorsement was not regarded as important in this relatively conservative district as it was in other parts of the city. The Valley race was a special election to fill the final two years of the term of David Armor, who resigned from the school board last year.

Several more conservative candidates, including Romey, George St. Johns and Bunny Field, sought to attract votes by touting endorsements from Republican legislators and opposing year-round schools.

Talking Up Experience

In the Eastside’s District 5, Quezada had the support of much of the Latino political Establishment, including board member Larry Gonzalez, who was not seeking reelection. She walked many of the area’s precincts in recent weeks, talking up her two years of experience on the community college board.

But Ruiz, a Chicano studies professor at California State University, Northridge, sought to sway voters by extolling his longtime concerns with local schools, dating to student walkouts at five Eastside high schools in 1968. The walkouts were sparked by criticism that administrators were doing little to stem the high dropout rate among Latino students and that not enough Latino educators were given management jobs.

In the community college races, which were for four at-large seats, one of the three incumbents seeking reelection was supported by the American Federation of Teachers College Guild.

Garvin, a former Harbor College professor, was supported by the AFT because of his votes against the threatened layoffs of full-time faculty members.

Votes Lead to Opposition

The union decided to oppose the other two, Richman and Archie-Hudson, because of their votes in favor of the layoffs.

Richman, a Sun Valley physician who was seeking his fifth term, was opposed by, among others, the AFT-supported candidate, Knox, and former Trustee J. William Orozco, a former ally of Richman.

In the race for the seat vacated by Quezada, Lopez-Lee, 44, and Carmen Luna, 28, campaigned hard, partly because of their belief that the seat should go to a Latino. Ferraro, a former Los Angeles school board member, sought to attract votes by promising tight fiscal management to reverse the community colleges’ poor financial posture.

Ferraro also promised to push for the dismissal of Chancellor Leslie Koltai, whom he blamed for the many of the colleges’ problems.