41st Assembly District

Each election cycle, The Times Valley Edition editorial board interviews candidates from select races about their views on the issues and about their campaigns. Today’s interviews are with Fran Pavley and Jayne Murphy Shapiro, who are campaigning for the 41st Assembly District seat vacated by Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), who is running for state Senate. The largely affluent, well-educated district stretches from Malibu over the Santa Monica Mountains into the western San Fernando Valley.

Pavley, a Democrat, is a schoolteacher who served on the Agoura Hills City Council and was a four-term mayor of that city. She also has served on the California Coastal Commission and Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Advisory Committee.

Shapiro, a Republican, is a nurse and community activist. She is the founder of KidSafe, an organization dedicated to strengthening laws against child molesters and increasing awareness of child abuse. She is a member of the executive committee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and an appointee to the Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women.

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FRAN PAVLEY:

Question: What do you think you offer this district that your opponent does not?

Answer: I think the primary difference is my experience. It seems that local government has become the new training ground for state office. So I think voters are looking for people who sort of hit the ground running when they get to Sacramento in January. It’s somewhat frightening to think that when you get up there, less than two months after being elected, you have to be ready to go. And there’s not a lot of institutional memory left in Sacramento. Only one-third of the Legislature will have served more than two years.

Q: Registration in the district favors Democrats. But your opponent seems to think she can draw from that Democratic base because she has a somewhat middle of the road stance. In an era of centrist politics, do you think this will work?

A: I have not seen that deterioration at all. The reason I won the primary was I was able to win every precinct in Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Malibu, Topanga, all the unincorporated areas, which is really a swing part of the district. It’s really a lot more evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, and so I was very effective in keeping my Republican friends voting for me, and I’m sure they will again in the general election. I think that comes from being a nonpartisan local elected official. I haven’t really been engaged in partisan politics, and they know me for my record.

Q: We talked about term limits and the effect they have on the Legislature. Are you in favor of term limits?

A: I think the voters are in favor of term limits. But I think they’re much too short. What if we expected that kind of turnover in any other profession? It takes years to develop that kind of expertise. I think of my effectiveness as a City Council member--I would say by my second or third term, I was really doing great things for the city because I had developed very good relationships with county, state and federal officials. I was able to get involved in the League of California Cities on a statewide level, and I think I served the public to their betterment, being around enough years. I don’t think the public’s ready to change term limits, though, right now. I wish the Assembly terms were longer than two years.

Q: What is your stand on the school voucher initiative?

A: I’m absolutely and unequivocally opposed to vouchers for a variety of reasons. Financially, it’s coming at the exact wrong time to hit the public schools. The public is now trying to reinvest in its schools. Education is the No. 1 issue of all interest groups, no matter what age group--people with kids in schools, senior citizens. It’s equally as important to the business community. I think people realize it’s going to drive California’s economic engine in the 21st century. We’ve got to invest in our public schools. I’m also very concerned about the voucher initiative because of the lack of accountability. As a public school teacher, we’re required to be more and more accountable, whether it’s test scores or curriculum, and the voucher initiative requires no accountability. You don’t have to teach a particular curriculum. You don’t have to have the standard tests that we have. You don’t have to have teachers with credentials. You can pick and choose whoever you want to have in your program. And I really don’t think $4,000 a year is adequate for many people who are looking at other options.

Q: What about the initiative that eliminates the two-thirds requirement on the school bond votes?

A: I’m supporting Proposition 39. What it does is allow flexibility so people can decide in their own school districts whether a bond issue is passed. There are so many school districts that have had 60%, 61%, 62% [support]. In fact, in the Las Virgenes School District, where I live, it took three tries, each time getting in that low 60% range. It was a huge waste of resources when the vast majority of people supported investing in their public schools.

Q: What about the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District?

A: I think that [the district’s] attempt to split into 11 subdistricts has great potential. The principals and administrators I’ve talked to feel that they can not only speed up the bureaucratic process of getting the resources they need but get feedback on issues. A lot of people talk about breaking up the school district, and I think a lot of it is in reaction to Belmont [Learning Complex] or whatever people are angry about these days. You have to look at the bottom line: Is that really going to help the children? And I am not convinced just breaking it up is the magic bullet for helping kids. A lot more complex issues need to be resolved. So I’m for investing in things like early childhood education programs . . . providing money for more additional after-school and weekend programs and language development for children as well as their parents. I am also a strong proponent of charter schools.

Q: What about San Fernando Valley secession?

A: What I’ve told people is that I want to make sure that that process would be as open and fair as possible. I’m relatively familiar with LAFCO [the Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees the secession study]. It’s a very political body. I was the first mayor of Agoura Hills and we seceded from Los Angeles County so I can relate to it on a smaller scale. I understand people’s desire for more local control. Will the Valley be better off separate from L.A.? I’m not sure. I mean, all the economic studies need to be done and everything else. How do you deal with the infrastructure and how does it get divided up? There’s an economic bottom line, too, that needs to be looked at. I think it’s a tragedy that a large city like Los Angeles can’t work more effectively. You don’t hear about Chicago or New York breaking up, and so we’ve got to come back to the root of the problem of why people feel disenfranchised.

Q: How would you address the traffic issue?

A: I’ve been in the subway about half a dozen times now. It’s clean and it’s neat. It’s efficient. I’m sure a lot of Valley leaders [are] kicking [themselves] on why we couldn’t have come together and decided on how to extend it west, whether on the Chandler / Burbank route or whatever. We missed an opportunity. This is a great system. It operates every 10 minutes and is very safe, comfortable and affordable. I think as a good transitional approach, the rapid bus going down Ventura Boulevard is a short-term option. And they’re talking about other busways. The key to that being effective is putting in the park-and-ride lots. There are something like eight [rapid bus] stops along Ventura Boulevard now. But there’s no place to park. In the short term I’m very supportive of busways up Van Nuys Boulevard. I don’t know if they’ve considered Topanga [Canyon Boulevard], but maybe there’s an option there to hook into MetroLink. There needs to be a master plan and a regional focus to those simple things like park-and-ride lots. I think you have to come up with cost-effective solutions while we look at the long-term big picture. As far as linkages to [Los Angeles International Airport], there’s talk about expanding the transit hub and the park-and-ride lot here in the Valley. I’m certainly supportive of that.

Q: How would the Ahmanson Ranch project affect the Valley? Would it increase problems with traffic?

A: I think that 45,000 vehicle trips per day with no off-site mitigation is going to be absolute disaster.

Q: Are you opposed to the project?

A: Yeah. I’m working with Congressman Brad Sherman’s (D-Sherman Oaks) office, and Assembly member Sheila Keuhl (D-Santa Monica) to try to make a difference, perhaps in mitigating some of those potential problems.

Q: How can you mitigate those problems?

A: We obviously hope that perhaps state Sen. Jack O’Connell’s (D-San Luis Obispo) bill that would allow a huge tax break for donating the land would be something [the developer] would look at. And they’re going to have some issues probably with the red-legged frog habitat and things like that. Minimally, I would like to see them really address the transportation and traffic problems that they’re going to create on Valley Circle [Boulevard] that will spill over, obviously, into Las Virgenes Road.

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JAYNE MURPHY SHAPIRO:

Question: What do you think you offer voters that your opponent does not?

Answer: A balanced approach to issues. While I don’t have the background in terms of being an elected official, I think there’s some freshness that the 41st District is looking for. In advocating for children for so many years, I’ve learned the political system. I’ve learned the process of legislation, going from an idea and a proposal to a bill to a law and then watching to see that it’s implemented. And even though I’ve been focused on children’s advocacy, those skills are really, truly important at the state level, to work very closely with both sides of the aisle, which I don’t know if my opponent would be able to do. She’s quite beholden to her party. I don’t consider myself beholden to my party. I consider myself more of an independent thinker. I was not sought out to run for the party, nor did I seek out the party. I am just fiscally more conservative and find that the Republican party meets those needs of mine. Social issues, I’m much more liberal. I really feel that I have the ability to listen to both sides and come up with solutions that do the right thing. I don’t see that in my opponent, and that concerns me. It concerns me that that type of person would get into office. It’s a closed-door approach, it’s a one-issue-oriented mind-set, and I think that’s dangerous to any community, to have an elected official represent them in one direction and not have that open-door policy.

Q: You are a Republican running in a heavily Democratic district. Do you feel as though you are aligned with Democrats on a lot of issues?

A: What I’m finding in the district is that even though the registration is more Democratic than Republican, the people are truly independent thinkers. When you really sit down and talk to individuals, and don’t talk the R-word or the D-word but talk issues, you really come up with people who want to understand the issue and take care of the issue. I do have the Republican Party wrapped up, obviously. And I’ve been very instrumental and successful in moving people over, not to the Republican thought process, but moving them over to voting for a Republican like myself.

Q: Are you pro-choice?

A: I’m very pro-choice.

Q: Do you support the Bush-Cheney ticket?

A: No. I have a real hard time with someone who doesn’t believe in choice because I think of the impact it’s going to have on women. I think that both Bush and Cheney being anti-choice makes it very difficult for someone like me to get behind someone like that.

Q: How do you stand on the school voucher issue? (Proposition 38 on the state ballot would authorize at least $4,000 per pupil for use in attending qualifying private and religious schools).

A: I’m against the initiative, and I say that because if you introduce the voucher system on a massive scale, it would implode the public school system. I am not opposed giving parents a choice of where to send their child in the public school system. What I would like to see is a system where if a school, after let’s say a year, two years, three years, under-performs badly, parents can send their child somewhere else. The other thing is the system is so bad and in such disarray [that] it’s now on the front burner, statewide, and I would like to see us give it a shot. I think Los Angeles [Unified School District] Supt. Roy Romer has great ideas for the district. The most important thing that the state Legislature has to look at is the quality of education the kids are going to get, no matter where they are. I would like to see the emphasis placed on increased pay for teachers. If you don’t have a level of salary that’s attractive, we’re not going to get grads going out and teaching our kids.

Q: Did your children go to public school?

A: My four boys went to a Jewish day school. I was fortunate enough to be able to choose that, and I come from a religious background. I’m not against people having that choice, but I think to do it on a massive scale . . . I don’t think we’re ready for that.

Q: Do you favor the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District?

A: I did initially, before they talked about splitting into 11 smaller districts. I like this even better because it’s not so drastic a step. With term limits and the turnaround we have, we’re just flying through bills and passing laws. Now we need to see if things work. Charter schools are my favorite. I like the philosophy. Some don’t work. But I think that on the whole, it’s a good way to move.

Q: Do you favor Proposition 39, which would allow school bonds to be passed by a 55% majority rather than the two-thirds now required?

A: I favor that. Just make sure that it’s being done properly and the money is going exactly where it needs to go. And that’s not only in the field of education, that’s all over. I think we really have to strengthen our focus on accountability in all areas.

Q: You mentioned term limits. Do you favor them?

A: I favor term limits when I think of Bob Hertzberg. This is a legislator who to me is brilliant and can handle term limits and has done an incredible job. I’ve watched him not only go through the Assembly Rules Committee and take these bills and just disperse them, but he’s changed the system. He’s cleaned up the system. And he does it smoothly and beautifully. If we could have legislators like that, term limits are fine. The concerns I have are about the type of people getting into office. I’ve seen a lot of them that are not up there for the right reason. And I see a lot of elected officials who don’t really represent their people. And that pains me and it concerns me and that’s one of the reasons why I really do want to run. I’m not saying I’m brilliant like a Bob Hertzberg, but I do know that I’ve got the respect from him and that if I’m up there, even though I’m a Republican, that we could work very, very well together.

Q: What do you think we should be doing to solve our transportation problems?

A: First of all, obviously, we need funding to implement something that’s going to work. Then there is accountability. I would like to see where the money is and where it’s going. I don’t understand how, when we had the Northridge earthquake, our freeways got fixed so quickly. We can do things. Not over years, but months. Planning is crucial. We’ve got to look ahead, that visionary type of approach. We’ve got to see what we’re doing when we’re building something and the impact it’s going to have. One of the major concerns in my area is the proposed Ahmanson Ranch development. The impact that it has on the surface streets and the freeway is going to be . . . well, we are already in a crisis; it’s going to be even worse.

Q: How do you stand on the Ahmanson Ranch development?

A: I am not opposed to housing development. What I am concerned about with Ahmanson Ranch is that the planning stages for the impact on traffic should have been taken into consideration 10 or 11 years ago, and now we’re dealing with it. And I don’t think that that’s fair. I think they could scale it back. And I think we need to see studies from Rocketdyne to see if the soil is as contaminated as a lot of people are saying it is. It concerns me deeply about the soil. And I’m not saying the soil is contaminated, but if that stuff starts to move around and shake up, we’re dealing with a crisis in the [San Fernando] Valley. My husband died in 1990. We lived in Granada Hills, and he was an avid tennis player. We weren’t in the area of Rocketdyne, but with 75 mph winds, you can’t tell me that those particles and spores don’t move around. He died of cancer of the lung, and he was a nonsmoker with no history. And so I look at that and say, “I just wonder. I just wonder, being out there seven days a week playing tennis, in an environment that could possibly have had some spores moving around.” It really, truly concerns me.

Q: Where do you stand on the secession issue?

A: I was a chair for the women’s division for the San Fernando Valley Jewish Federation. We spent years trying to break off from the city because we were raising more dollars but we did not get our fair share. I understand the concept. I am not opposed to the breakup or secession. I think the voters have the right to want this. Smaller, to me, is better. I think it’s time the Valley gets a fair share. And I know that term has been used and used and used, but I really do believe that we do not get our fair share, from the studies that I have seen.