Riordan-Backed School Board Candidates Up the Ante With Ads

The production is flawless. The graphics are simple and bold. The 30-second spot is so smooth, in fact, it looks as if it belongs in a race for governor or Senate.

But the subject is one that Los Angeles television audiences are unaccustomed to: a candidate for the Los Angeles Board of Education.

The commercials, being broadcast by several cable companies across the Westside, the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles, promote two of the four candidates Mayor Richard Riordan is backing in the April 13 election.

The ads are paid for by Riordan’s political action committee, the Coalition for Kids. They feature challengers Mike Lansing and Caprice Young. Lansing is opposing board member George Kiriyama in the district that stretches from Watts to San Pedro. Young opposes board member Jeff Horton in the district that takes in Los Feliz, Hollywood and the east San Fernando Valley.

Several veteran political analysts said they were not aware of any previous school board race in which candidates used television.

The high cost of television production and the fractured Southland broadcast market discourage the use of the medium in local elections, said consultant Harvey Englander.

But he and others also said television makes perfect sense for any candidate who has the money.

“It is by far the greatest medium and vehicle for voter education and awareness,” said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Riordan, in an attempt to shake up school board politics, is backing three challengers along with board member David Tokofsky.

Riordan’s committee has reported contributions to it of more than $1.4 million, including $250,000 from real estate magnate Eli Broad. Riordan has said he wants to raise $2 million. A new financial contribution report is due by 5 p.m. today.

Rather than distributing the money directly to his chosen candidates, Riordan is having the committee spend it under the eye of political consultant William Carrick.

The committee has financed mailings in all four districts and some polling, members of the individual campaigns said.

Carrick said the ads, which began airing last week, are being placed with every cable company needed to reach viewers in the two school board districts. He said he expects them to be shown often enough so that every viewer might see them five times.

Carrick said television will not be used in the other two races for several reasons. Among them are his assessment that the candidates both have substantial name recognition and are getting their messages out efficiently by mail.

Carrick said he considered cable TV too inefficient to reach their voters, especially in the long, slender 5th District along the northern edge of Los Angeles. In that race Riordan is backing incumbent Tokofsky against challenger Yolie Flores Aguilar.

Carrick said he may use radio advertising in the 3rd District, covering South and Southwest Los Angeles, in which Riordan is backing Genethia Hayes against incumbent Barbara Boudreaux.

The television ads feature a smooth-voiced narrator who criticizes the current Board of Education for poor spending practices.

“The L.A. school board spends $6 billion a year, but our kids don’t have enough schoolbooks,” he says.

He also describes the half-finished Belmont Learning Complex as a “$200-million high school that may never open.”

Visuals show the candidates in various school settings, talking with students and parents.

Carrick said they have bought time on eight channels, including CNN, ESPN and Lifetime. He said he was not targeting any audience. Rather, he sees the ads as a way “to expand the electorate and increase turnout” in races that traditionally attract few voters.

“We’re going to see if we can turn some of the anxiety about the L.A. schools and the crisis mentality they have into voting,” he said.

Another consultant, Leo Briones, saw a potential for the television campaign to backfire if voters begin to perceive the incumbents as underdogs. “I think some people might think it’s a little over the top,” Briones said.

Nonetheless, Briones expects the tactic to catch on. “I think you’re going to see a lot more of this in the future of the city,” he said.