WHITTIER : 3 Candidates to Vie for School Board Seat

Residents of the Whittier City School District will go to the polls Tuesday in a special election to fill an empty school board seat.

The contenders are Nelda A. Fodor, a college library clerk; Ted Saulino, an elementary school teacher, and Liam D. Cowan, an assistant principal of a juvenile facility. The top vote-getter will serve until November, 1997.

The school board appointed Fodor in December to fill a vacancy created when Rosaura A. Aguerrebere resigned, but Saulino led a successful petition drive to force the special election. Fodor then stepped down from the board, pending the outcome of the election.

Fodor, 43, a library clerk at Whittier College, has been endorsed by a majority of board members and the union that represents non-teaching staff. She said the special election, which will cost an estimated $120,000, is unnecessary because her board seat would have been placed on the ballot in the elections next November. The special election is forcing the district to spend money that otherwise could have been allocated for students, she said.

Saulino, 55, an elementary teacher in the Garvey School District, said voters in the district want to select their own representative. Saulino has run twice before for the school board, but lost each time. During the last election in November, 1993, he finished fourth in a race for three school board seats.

He also sought the board’s appointment to Aguerrebere’s seat, but was not selected. He has been endorsed by the teachers union and by school board member Charles E. Hurley.

Saulino said he is unpopular among the other three board members because he opposes a maintenance tax that the board adopted four years ago to build and repair facilities. He also favors televising board meetings, which a majority of school board members say is too expensive.

Fodor is a strong supporter of the maintenance tax. She said, however, that she also supports televising board meetings.

Cowan, 38, an assistant principal for a California Youth Authority prison school in Whittier, said he would bring a “common-sense” approach to the school board.

The 6,400-student district operates 13 elementary and middle schools in central Whittier and an unincorporated area north of the city.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.