30 Run Confusing Race for Compton School Board Seats

If voters in the Compton Unified School District are confused, it is no wonder.

They have 30 candidates to sort out in Tuesday’s election to fill five school board seats.

Four candidates are running for a two-year seat. The remaining 26 are competing for four board seats that carry four-year terms.

Then there is the task of sorting out candidates who are listed on conflicting slates being mailed to voters.

Gregornio (Greg) Sanchez, for instance, is on slates with incumbent Lynn Dymally and Kalem Aquil, who is running against Dymally. Political loyalty is not the glue that binds these mailers, explains Sanchez, 57, a quality control manager.

“The object is to get my name known. The more slates I can get on, I’m better off,” he said.

The slate pieces flooding mailboxes this week are put together by political consultants. Sanchez says he paid $1,750 to be included on the two slates put together by Compton political consultant Basil Kimbrew.

To add to the confusion, the man that candidates love to criticize, school Supt. Ted D. Kimbrough, is leaving in January to become superintendent of schools in Chicago.

During his seven years in Compton, Kimbrough has been supported by the majority of the seven school board members, which has made him the target of parent and community frustration over poor test scores and rundown school facilities.

Bitterness over the lack of student progress in the schools has become so strong that at a candidates’ forum last week, Aquil said he wanted a group of parents to “arrest” the superintendent for mismanaging the district. Another candidate, Acquanetta Harrison Warren, said the community has “lost confidence in our school district.”

Both Aquil, a 41-year-old electronics technician, and Warren, a 33-year-old product manager for First Interstate Bank, are running for the seat held by Dymally, daughter of Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton). The other candidate, Omar Bradley, is making his second try this year at elective office. A Lynwood High School teacher, Bradley, 30, was an unsuccessful City Council candidate.

The seat held by Dymally carries a two-year term. She was appointed in July to fill the unexpired term of Bernice Woods, who was elected to the City Council. Some candidates and parents waged an unsuccessful battle to stop Dymally’s appointment, charging that she was appointed because of her father’s position.

Trustee Dymally, who previously served one term on the board, holds a degree from Whittier College School of Law, but is not a practicing attorney. She says she runs her own management and consulting business.

The four remaining open seats are also held by incumbents seeking reelection. Manuel Correa, 65, a retired Compton Police Department commander, is seeking a seventh term. Kelvin Filer and Sam Littleton are seeking third terms. Filer, 33, an attorney, says this would be his last term. Littleton is a medical social worker at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

John Steward, a 47-year-old deputy probation officer for Los Angeles County, also is seeking a third term. An outspoken critic of Kimbrough’s leadership, Steward is the only incumbent to receive the backing of the Compton teachers union.

Among the challengers vying for four-year terms are Earnest J. Spears, 47, executive director of the Compton Chamber of Commerce, and Roy E. Little, 48, a vocational rehabilitation counselor who also is vice chairman of the Carson Human Relations Commission. Little is the brother of actor Cleavon Little.

The Compton school district takes in part of Carson, as well as the entire city of Compton and various county areas.

Margaret Moore, 58, a community liaison with the school district, is making her second bid for a board seat. Also running is Madelina D. Dewberry, a former teacher who is manager of human resources at American Express in Culver City; Verda M. Cheathem, a teacher; Hyacinth Dandridge, who taught school in Los Angeles and is a community activist in Compton; Nancy L. Johnson, a retired teacher, and Patricia Moore, a business license inspector for the city. She is not related to the city councilwoman of the same name.

Other candidates are Sadie R. Benham, a child-care coordinator; Muhammad Abdullah, a student at Cal State Long Beach; Rev. Gary Leon Daniels, who also is a teacher; Deborah M. Gayles, a library assistant; Ken Perkins, who is self-employed; Saul E. Lankster, a former school board member who operates a florist shop; Chester L. Hammond Sr., a youth services counselor; Dhanifu S. Karim, student and counselor; Malcum Mumford, a sheet-metal worker; Otha Ray Scott, an educator; Mae Thomas, a community parent facilitator; Walter E. White Jr., a retired property manager, and Paula L. Howard, a physical education teacher in the Lynwood schools and sister-in-law of candidate Bradley.

ABC Unified

There will be at least two new members on the ABC Unified School District’s seven-member board because incumbents Peggy Lee and Barbara Goul-Owens chose not to run. One incumbent and six other candidates will compete for three board seats in the district, which has more than 20,000 students and covers Artesia, Cerritos, Lakewood and Hawaiian Gardens.

Catherine Grant, 41, who is completing her first four-year term, is a lawyer for Community Legal Services in Norwalk. She has served as president and clerk of the board.

Challenger Sally Morales Havice, an English professor at Cerritos College, ran unsuccessfully for the board two years ago. She lives in Cerritos.

The other candidates are running for the first time.

Dean Criss, 64, is former director of maintenance, operations and transportation with the school district. Criss, who lives in Artesia, was a district employee more than 20 years before retiring.

Ted Hemminger, 46, Cerritos, is an associate advertising director for Los Angeles Magazine.

Prestell F. Askia, 41, Cerritos, is an aerospace manager and administrator for Northrop Corp. in Pico Rivera.

Pamela Sher-Verduzco, 46, Hawaiian Gardens, works as an English language developmental teacher in the Long Beach Unified School District.

John Benzing, 50, Cerritos, is deputy director of engineering for the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency.

Downey Unified

A dentist and a chiropractor are vying for a seat on the Board of Education of the Downey Unified School District.

Robert E. Riley, a 49-year-old dentist who was first elected to the Board of Education in 1981, faces chiropractor Donald K. Hopkins, 25.

The Downey Education Assn., which represents district teachers, has made no formal endorsement, but it is telling members in its newsletter that Hopkins would be more sympathetic to teachers if elected.

Association Executive Director Richard Ruether said Riley has consistently opposed salary increases for teachers during negotiations.

Riley said this week that he supports good salaries for teachers but that he has opposed some raises because it was unclear whether the district would have enough money in the future to cover higher personnel costs.

Hopkins, whose wife, Cynthia, teaches math in the district, said he supports giving the district’s instructors good wages to do good jobs.

The term of office is four years, and board members receive a $400 monthly stipend.

Board of Education members Grace E. Horney and Walter S. Temple are running unopposed. Horney was first elected in 1965, while Temple began serving on the board in 1981.

Lynwood Unified

Overcrowded classes emerged as the key issue in the race for two seats on the five-seat Lynwood Unified School District board. Two incumbents and four challengers are running.

Parents and students staged two demonstrations to complain about overcrowded classes and a shortage of teachers. Two of the challengers marched with the demonstrators.

State officials earlier this year fined the district $360,000 for consistently violating the state limit on class sizes in elementary schools during the 1988-89 school year. Nearly 3,000 students are enrolled in the district’s high school, which is more than 30 years old and was built to accommodate 1,000 students. There are more than 14,000 students in the district.

Incumbents Joe Battle and Helen Andersen say they believe that a settlement over the price for land the district condemned for a high school site could be reached soon, which would clear the way for construction of a new school to help ease the overcrowded conditions.

Battle, 47, and Andersen are seeking their third four-year terms. Battle is a field service representative for the U.S. Treasury Department. Andersen operates an income tax business in Lynwood and has lived in the city more than 30 years.

Three of the challengers have lost previous races for the board.

Cynthia Green-Geter, 39, manager of a family-owned construction business, was defeated in a 1985 race. She was one of the participants in the demonstration to protest overcrowding.

Margaret Araujo, 42, who also participated in the demonstrations, ran for the board in 1987. She is a community aide in the district’s dropout prevention program.

Rachel Chavez, 51, also lost in the 1987 election, finishing fourth in the race for three seats. She trailed the third-place candidate, Thelma Williams, by only five votes. Chavez is a former social worker for Los Angeles County.

Challenger Irma Bass is making her first attempt at elective office. She works in customer service for a department store. Bass would not reveal her age.

Paramount Unified

Seven candidates, including two incumbents and a former board member, are vying for three board seats in the 12,000-student Paramount Unified School district, which includes portions of Lakewood and Long Beach as well as Paramount.

Incumbents seeking reelection to the five-member board are Shirley Elliott, 66, who has served 12 years, and Joseph M. Montoya III, a lawyer who has served eight years.

V. E. (Gene) French, 55, a self-employed businessman for 22 years, was a school board member for 12 1/2 years before leaving in 1985. He said he is running again because he is concerned about a decline in student achievement test scores and an increasing dropout rate in the district.

Other candidates:

Betty S. Pride, 72, a retired bookkeeper, was defeated in an election effort eight years ago.

Janet Miller, 52, a housewife who has been involved with the PTA for years, said she is seeking election for the first time because of concerns over the dropout rate, gang violence and crowded classes.

Christina G. Anker, a retired secretary, could not be reached for comment.

Alvin G. Hatwan, a retired teacher and administrator, could not be reached for comment.

Times staff writers Michele Fuetsch, Lee Harris and Rick Holguin contributed to this report.