Poor Voter Turnout

As the inspector of Precinct 3017, I arose at 5 a.m. on April 11, got myself ready, packed my election materials in my car, picked up my clerk and proceeded to our designated polling place where we set up our booths and prepared ourselves for our 7 a.m. opening. As there was no council race in our district we did not expect to be overwhelmed (we had a 16% turnout in June of 1994 and 37% in November).

Overwhelmed we were not! By 8 p.m. when we closed the poll, we had 52 voters and one absentee vote in 13 hours. This is out of 600 voters. Thus a 9% turnout. Anyone can miss an election due to circumstances beyond their control, but to miss election after election and say they don’t vote because their vote doesn’t count, or they don’t understand the issues or they don’t care, I say pack your bags and get going; you are breaking the social contract. Democracy is not a spectator sport; be a participant or get out of our country.

FRED R. BROOKS

Santa Monica

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I understood when I filed my papers, as a candidate for the Community College District Board of Trustees, that this was not a seat that would attract major press.

The Los Angeles Community College District is the largest in the nation, consisting of nine community colleges throughout Los Angeles. With so much talk about turning Los Angeles around, much of my campaign has been about getting the word out that we have an enormous resource here in our own back yard--our community colleges.

As the campaign progressed, I wondered why no one knew about our community college board, why so few knew about the community college system, or the nine colleges, why so few knew that there was an election for the board or even that the board was elected. In trying to gather press about this election, I was met with “no one covers your race,” “no one covers higher education,” or “we’ll get back to you if we’re interested.”

The calls never came, the stories were never written and the interviews never happened. So many voters in this election complained they have to randomly pick candidates because they know so little about any of us. I ask the media: What do I have to do to bring attention to our board races? The day after the election, the phone rang off the hook. Did you win? Is there a runoff? I didn’t see any stories or articles about your race. Call after call I said, yes, it’s good news, I made the top two vote getters, there will be a runoff June 6.

I really do believe the citizens of Los Angeles deserve to know about our community colleges, about the fine work that is done there, about the committed faculty and staff and the enormous amount of difference our community colleges do make in Los Angeles and could make in the future--with a little help from the media.

DAVID KESSLER

Los Angeles