Forum Opens Campaigning for Inglewood School Board

A sparsely attended forum on Wednesday for area political candidates served as the first round in the campaign for the June 7 Inglewood Unified School District special election.

School board candidates Larry Aubry, Terry Coleman, William (Tony) Draper and William (Bill) Gill jabbed sparingly at one another while focusing on issues that confront the board.

But candidates for the 50th Assembly District and for Los Angeles County district attorney battered away at powerful incumbents Assemblyman Curtis Tucker (D-Inglewood) and Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner. Tucker and Reiner did not attend, though Reiner sent a representative.

Inglewood Councilman Daniel Tabor, a Democrat, and Republican Michael Davis are challenging Tucker.

District attorney candidates attending were two deputy district attorneys--Lea D’Agostino and Iver Bye--and lawyer Fred Calabro.

The forum was hosted by the United Democratic Club of Inglewood, a group recently established as an alternative to the older Inglewood Democratic Club. Candidates gave prepared statements and answered questions from a panel and the audience.

SCHOOL BOARD RACE

The school board special election is a product of the turmoil within the Inglewood school district.

The latest strife began with a fight to name a replacement for board member Ernest Shaw, who died in September. Community groups angered by the secretive process the board used to appoint former Police Chief Joseph Rouzan launched a petition drive that ousted Rouzan and forced the election. Another vacancy was created in March by the abrupt resignation of Rosemary Benjamin, whose seat will be filled in November.

The board has a history of political fights between separate factions aligned with Mayor Edward Vincent, Tucker and Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles). Other ignificant issues that the board member elected in June will face include: a $3-million budget deficit, controversy over Supt. Rex Fortune’s contract extension and a growing Latino student population.

At the forum--which was attended by about 25 people--the candidates acknowledged these issues, calling for the board to move beyond personal and political agendas. Aubry and Draper, who have the most political experience and are considered front-runners, gave the strongest showings.

Infighting Criticized

Aubry, 54, is a county human relations consultant and Los Angeles Sentinel columnist who ran for the board in 1983, losing to Draper despite Vincent’s support. Aubry says he has distanced himself from the political factions. He said he would bring new harmony to the district.

“The board has been plagued by dissension, political infighting and a closed attitude toward the community,” Aubry said. “I will lend my expertise as a mediator to improve interaction.”

Draper, 45, an engineer for Hughes Aircraft, was an outspoken critic of the board majority allied with Vincent during his four-year tenure. He lost to current board president Lois Hill-Hale last year. Draper, who also ran for mayor in 1986, said he has experience and has taken tough stands.

“It’s important to have someone in there who understands the process,” he said. Draper noted that he incurred the anger of teachers during last year’s election by opposing a 10% pay raise, which he predicted would cause a financial crisis.

“You have to be able to make decisions that might in fact cause you not to be elected next time,” he said. “Too many board members make decisions based on elections, not the children.”

Gill, 46, is a Long Beach city construction inspector and former maintenance director for the Inglewood schools who ran unsuccessfully for the board last year. He said board members must be accessible to parents and aggressively promote the school system.

“Being a board member is more than just sitting in the board room twice a month,” he said. “If I were a board member I would go out and sing the praises of the school system, not of myself.”

Fighting Gangs, Drugs

Coleman, 45, a Los Angeles Airport police officer on disability leave, is a newcomer to politics who led the petition drive for the special election.

He is aligned with board member Zyra McCloud, a Watson ally. He said he would fight gangs and drugs in the school system. “We have to return the schools back to the teachers and children,” he said. “We have to do something about these kids who aren’t in school.”

Candidates were not permitted to ask questions of one another, but several differences surfaced, many of them brought out by questions from the audience.

At one point, Draper took issue with Aubry’s emphasis on bringing harmony to the board, saying he preferred to be independent.

“On a board there are five different people with five different agendas,” Draper said. “If for the sake of harmony, I’m going to have to keep something that happened on the board from the public, I’ll have to let the harmony go.”

Aubry criticized Draper’s use of the term “bright flight” to describe the loss of high-achieving Inglewood students who choose not to attend Inglewood high schools.

“We have to stop talking about bright flight,” Aubry said. “Those are highly motivated students, they’re upwardly mobile. But the ones who remain have no less potential. We have to get past this mind-set where expectations are lower for minority students.”

Son Attended Private Schools

Coleman was put on the defensive by an audience member’s question, which pointed out that he is the only candidate whose children have not attended Inglewood schools. Coleman has one son, who attended private schools.

“I have 15,000 children in this district,” Coleman responded. “I am concerned about all of the children.”

That drew a response from Draper, over the objections of moderator Garland Hardeman, a Coleman ally. “If you don’t trust the system enough to have children in the schools, its going to be hard to run it,” said Draper.

The candidates did not comment on the performance of Supt. Fortune until the issue was raised by a member of the audience.

And Draper was alone in expressing dissatisfaction with Fortune, whose contract was extended abruptly in March by board members McCloud and Hill-Hale over objections from board member Caroline Coleman.

Draper said he grew disenchanted with Fortune during his board tenure because the superintendent “did not choose to stand up and run the district. You can only be controlled if you allow people to control you.”

Aubry said he did not have enough information to evaluate Fortune. Gill said that it was not possible to judge Fortune’s work because board members had prevented him from running the district. Coleman said he felt Fortune had been misled by school district lawyers.

Candidates also took different positions when asked about the lack of Latinos among the district’s leadership despite a nearly 40% Latino student population. There are no Latino board members and few Latino administrators.

While Aubry and Coleman said it would be important for the district to reach out to Latinos and address their needs, Draper and Gill said Latinos will have to further involve themselves in the community before their representation increases.

50th ASSEMBLY RACE

The absence of incumbent Tucker kept the Assembly candidates’ portion of the forum short, though Tabor and Davis sniped at him for not showing up.

Tabor, 32, a second-term councilman, has entered into a David-Goliath struggle with fellow Democrat Tucker, a seven-term legislator and chairman of the Assembly Health Committee. They face off in the June primary.

He said 50th District constituents are not being “actively, aggressively represented” by Tucker and promised to bring constituents into the legislative process if elected.

Special Interests Cited

“The assemblyman has done nothing more than vote and allow others to take the lead,” Tabor said. He charged that constituents have suffered because Tucker is allied with powerful special interests including the insurance and health lobbies.

Both Tabor and Davis called for promoting economic development in Inglewood, though Davis, who unsuccessfully ran as a Republican against Tucker in 1986, favors enterprise zones that offer incentives to businesses, while Tabor said he supports affirmative action in contract awards.

Davis, a lawyer whose chance for victory is slim in the heavily Democratic district, which encompasses Inglewood, Westchester, El Segundo and a section of south Los Angeles.

DISTRICT ATTORNEY RACE

The district attorney candidates also lambasted the incumbent, but Cliff Klein of the district attorney’s office was on hand to defend Reiner from charges that morale in his office is low and that he has neglected crime fighting because he is a career politician who is interested in higher office.

The most spirited of the attackers was D’Agostino, who said: “Ira Reiner views the district attorney’s office as a giant public relations firm with one client: himself. He doesn’t care about you or me or anyone but himself. If you vote for Ira Reiner you’ll only have a district attorney for two years, because he’ll be running (for state office) in 1990.”

Klein denied these and other accusations, saying Reiner has helped toughen anti-drug laws and worked with communities against gang problems.