School Board Race : Gershman Foe Attacks Ethics of Newsletter

Mark Slavkin, the Los Angeles school board candidate who is challenging Westside incumbent Alan Gershman, has accused Gershman of “arrogance of power” in distributing a pro-Gershman newsletter that Slavkin claims was produced and distributed, at least in part, at public expense.

Slavkin, whose candidacy has been endorsed by United Teachers-Los Angeles, the union that represents more than 30,000 district teachers, held a poorly attended press conference Thursday in front of school board headquarters downtown to condemn Gershman.

Slavkin said Gershman “entered an ethical no-man’s land” late last June when he mailed more than 2,000 copies of a six-page newsletter that Slavkin described as “chock full of photos (of Gershman) and self-serving prose.”

School Board Approval

Slavkin said Gershman’s mailing of the newsletter shortly after the passage of Proposition 73, which prohibits public officials from sending more than 200 mass mailers at public expense, was “a slap in the face of the voters who passed Proposition 73 and said, ‘We want no more.’ ”

Gershman countered that the newsletter was produced with school board approval before the passage of Proposition 73. Gershman said he reimbursed the district for printing 10,000 copies of the document and for the cost of mailing copies of the newsletter. Gershman said he paid just under $3,000 out of his campaign fund for distribution of the material, including the cost of computerized mailing labels. District officials confirmed Gershman’s account.

Slavkin, a Democratic activist and deputy to county Supervisor Ed Edelman, described the newsletter as a “symbol that Alan Gershman’s ethical gas tank is on empty.” In a prepared statement, Slavkin wrote, “I think voters are tired of politicians using education dollars to cling to power rather than meet the needs of children.”

In his statement, Slavkin also noted that a recent court decision lifted the ban on such newsletters and called on the school board to prohibit the use of district money for campaign materials. The court decision to void the newsletter ban is expected to be appealed.

“This is the biggest non-issue that may ever have come down the pike,” Gershman said. “This is so much a non-issue, it suggest to me that Slavkin is getting desperate awfully early in the race.”

Slavkin is widely viewed as a pro-union candidate, whose election April 11 would move the board closer to teachers and further from Supt. Leonard Britton on many district issues.