School Board Candidate Says Forum Snubbed Him : Elections: Richard Bieber is the only one of four contenders for the seat not invited to appear at a Canoga Park panel. Group blames time constraints.

A Northridge electrical contractor running for a seat on the Los Angeles school board expressed outrage Wednesday at being skipped over for a candidates forum to be held next week by a coalition of San Fernando Valley religious groups.

Of the four candidates running for the mid-Valley district seat being vacated by longtime Trustee Roberta Weintraub, Richard (Ricc) Bieber was the only one not invited to appear at a Canoga Park panel scheduled for Monday and sponsored by VOICE, an organization of Valley churches and synagogues.

VOICE officials attributed Bieber’s omission to the time constraints of the forum, saying they had to limit the field of speakers at an event that will feature 16 municipal election candidates, including five mayoral candidates, several City Council candidates and all three competitors for the Board of Education seat that covers the West Valley.

But Bieber called the omission an unfair snub, noting that he alone of the seven candidates jockeying to represent Valley voters on the school board will not appear at the event.

“I’m rather incensed,” Bieber said. “If you’re going to have a forum, either invite all the candidates or just don’t bother. If not ethically, then morally, it’s wrong.”

Diane Wildhaber, co-chairwoman of VOICE, said Bieber’s name was left off the list by the luck of the draw. After VOICE officials tapped incumbent Julie Korenstein and challenger Eli Brent as the front-runners in the mid-Valley race, organizers “just drew straws” to determine whether Bieber or teacher Lynne Kuznetsky would be invited to be the third candidate at the forum, Wildhaber said.

“It was just a matter of looking at the agenda and figuring out where . . . we stop for the time we have allotted,” she said. “It was not a political decision.”

Wildhaber added that Bieber--as well as Korenstein and Brent and possibly Kuznetsky--will be invited to appear at a similar event scheduled next Thursday in the East Valley. In all, VOICE is holding three forums and hopes to feature all candidates by the end of the series, she said.

Bieber, however, accused VOICE of depriving him of “equal time” by shutting him out of Monday’s forum, which he said he might attend and try to disrupt.

“It’s outrageous to be a legitimate candidate and be utterly ignored,” he said.