2 Reformers Win in Troubled Laguna District

In this city’s financially battered school district, a new guard swept into power Wednesday, with final vote tallies favoring a pair of cost-conscious reformers who helped author a dump-the-debt proposal titled “101 Ways to Save $1 Million.”

Eileen T. Walsh, 46, a former Orange County finance director, and Steven Rabago, 41, owner of an investment and consulting firm, ousted incumbent Jan Vickers, 49, and also claimed the seat of Timothy D. Carlyle, 48, who chose not to run.

With all 39 precincts reporting, Walsh notched 24.9% of the vote to Rabago’s 23.9%. Vickers finished third with 21.8%, while challengers El Hathaway and Ali Abdolsalehi brought up the rear with 18% and 10.8% of the vote respectively.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Catherine Rowe, a parent activist in the district who said parents at her child’s bus stop Wednesday morning chattered about the changeover with delight.

“I think [the two new board members] will be two strong leaders for the school board, and I think that’s what the district needs right now,” she said.

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Many activists had called for reforms in Laguna Beach, whose $13.3-million school budget has a $1.2-million shortfall. The budget has been rejected by both the county and state, setting the stage for the county to intervene in the district’s finances if the crisis is not resolved.

The Laguna Beach Unified School District has been immersed in a fiscal crisis that reached a boiling point last summer, prompting a shake-up among district administrators. A three-member state budget review team recently came to Laguna to review the crisis and make recommendations. Walsh and Rabago had some advice of their own--apparently to the voters’ liking.

As the district’s crisis peaked in August, angry parents staged a rally to call for a change in leadership, and SchoolPower, a school fund-raising organization that has grown increasingly political, threatened to withhold donations. Both Rabago and Walsh are SchoolPower board members.

Since then, the district’s finance director has been fired, the superintendent has taken an early retirement and the top two other administrators have announced they were taking jobs elsewhere. While not all of the departures are blamed on the fiscal problems, there is no question that the money woes have had a profound impact on the district.

Vickers, voted out on Tuesday, admitted on Wednesday that she was hardly surprised.

“I think the board made a lot of progress in dealing with the crisis,” she said. “But with what I was up against, I was hopeful at best. I had no false confidence.”

Elsewhere in the county, school board races were marked more by concerns over spending and revenue streams than educational reforms. Conservative Christian candidates, who had made such reforms as “back to basics” their rallying cry, did not fare well as a group.

In Anaheim, 16-year police officer Harald G. Martin accomplished a rare feat by winning a seat on a second school board. Martin, 42, already a trustee on the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Trustees, won election to the Anaheim City School District board, which oversees the city’s elementary schools.

Martin said he was legally entitled to serve on two boards at the same time, noting, “You can be on two boards; you just can’t run for them at the same time.” Anaheim Councilman Lou Lopez, who like Martin is a city police officer, had previously served on the two school boards at the same time before moving to the City Council.

Suzanne Slupsky, elections section supervisor for the Orange County registrar of voters, confirmed Martin’s contention.

In Santa Ana, where four seats were up for grabs, the surprise results included the apparent defeat of two-term incumbent Sal Mendoza, 51, and the election of longtime Latino rights activist Nativo V. Lopez, 45.

Two of the four women running as conservative Christian candidates appeared to have won seats, though the faction failed in its bid to alter the board’s balance of power.

With more than 19% of the vote, incumbent Rosemarie Avila, 48--who spearheaded the conservative Christian slate--was the front-runner among 10 candidates vying for three four-year seats.

Conservative Christian newcomer Debra K. O’Donnell, 45, appeared to have clinched a vacant fourth seat for a term of two years. With some absentee ballots outstanding, she led Aida Espinoza, 25, by fewer than 40 votes.

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Individual candidates running with the backing of the conservative Tustin-based Education Alliance and Christian organizations also claimed seats in Garden Grove, Tustin and the Saddleback Valley district but failed to gain a majority on any board.

In the Capistrano Unified School District, Christian candidates suffered a devastating setback, losing by a wide ratio in all four races.

Joseph Snyder, 52; Ralph R. Riddell, 63; Don Franklin Richardson, 50; and David T. Leland, 44, had campaigned collectively on a “back-to-basics” platform demanding a return to traditional math and phonics. Like a number of candidates running this year, Richardson had advocated teaching creationism in public schools.

“Everything that this board has accomplished was validated by the electorate,” said Sheila Benecke, 55, president of the Capistrano board. “I’m really pleased.”

Times correspondents Kimberly Brower, Jeff Kass and John Pope also contributed to this report.