Foes Question Rios-Parra’s Independence

Opponents of Los Angeles school board candidate Nellie Rios-Parra questioned her independence Monday, after revelations that her husband had planned to solicit millions in donations from billionaire Eli Broad to fund her race against incumbent David Tokofsky.

A memo written by Rios-Parra’s husband, which was excerpted in most Monday editions of The Times, outlined several conditions for Rios-Parra’s candidacy, including a proposal that Broad give $2 million to her current employer, the Lennox School District, and a multimillion-dollar donation to Occidental College. In addition, the memo suggested that the Coalition for Kids, the political action organization backed by Broad and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, give Rios-Parra a $400,000 campaign contribution.

The letter is addressed to Rios-Parra’s campaign director, Parke Skelton, who denied ever receiving it.

The memo’s author, Alvin Parra, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, and his wife issued written statements Tuesday denying that the letter had been sent out. Rios-Parra said she had never seen the memo until a Los Angeles Times reporter showed it to her Monday.

In the statement, Alvin Parra called the memo “foolish and ill- advised.” During an interview Monday, he said it was “a bad joke.” He and his wife declined requests for interviews Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Rios-Parra’s opponents in L.A. Unified’s District 5, mainly in East and Southeast Los Angeles, used the memo and the Coalition for Kids’ $121,000 in contributions to her campaign to attack her credibility. They also criticized Broad’s and Riordan’s practice of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on selected school board candidates.

Speaking from the district’s regular school board meeting, Tokofsky called Rios-Parra’s “a last-minute candidacy” after Broad and Riordan were unable to persuade Occidental College President Ted Mitchell to run. Tokofsky, who is seeking a third term, said he doubted Parra’s contention that he wrote the memo as a joke.

“I don’t understand that kind of humor,” Tokofsky said. “It trivializes the mission that so many people both as parents and educators bring on a daily basis to our schools.”

Candidate Jose Sigalla, an aide to Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), said the money Rios-Parra received from the coalition masks her “lack of broad-based community support.” Rios-Parra, a pre-school programs director in Lennox, has raised less than $30,000 outside of the coalition, according to campaign filings.

Candidate Maria Lou Calanche, a doctoral student and community college instructor, said the memo “tells me that Nellie didn’t want to run and that she’s more interested in saving her position in Lennox,” she said. School board members are paid a part-time salary of $24,000 a year.

The memo deals with a possible way for $2 million from Broad to, among other things, subsidize Rios-Parra’s salary at Lennox if she won the Los Angeles school board seat.

“This way, I can call the Lennox superintendent to let him know, and he can agree to keep Nellie on the Lennox payroll two days a week if she is elected and pay her the salary difference [loss]. This way we can tell Nellie that she needs not worry about losing money and she gets to KEEP the job she loves, AND save LAUSD,” Parra wrote. “Nellie gets it all and there is no loss $.

“There’s no rush to make the actual donation, just to agree to it.”

Lennox Schools Supt. Bruce McDaniel said Tuesday that Riordan had called him about Rios-Parra’s school board candidacy in October and that the former mayor said she could do both jobs. But McDaniel denied receiving any donations from him or Broad. Nor had they contributed to Occidental College, said the institution’s spokesman, Jim Tranquada.

A coalition spokeswoman said Riordan and Broad had never seen the memo.

The memo is dated Nov. 1, the same day The Times reported that Broad had offered Occidental $10 million at the same time as he tried to persuade its president, Mitchell, to run against Tokofsky. And Riordan had offered the college a paid executive position, Mitchell told the college’s board of directors at the time. Broad and Riordan denied any quid quo pro for Mitchell’s candidacy, which never materialized.

The three other candidates said they were less disturbed by Parra’s proposal about Broad’s donations than they were by his suggestion in it that Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) be used as a cover for the coalition’s recruitment of his wife as a candidate.

“The ‘tainted’ Coalition cannot be Nellie’s public recruiter,” he wrote. “It’s got to be Jackie, then [Antonio Villaraigosa], and so on.”

Rios-Parra said Monday that she had met with Goldberg privately in the fall. In an interview Tuesday, Goldberg said that she could not recall whether that meeting took place, but said that she did not recruit Rios-Parra. Villaraigosa has said that he will not endorse anyone in the March 4 school board race.

Molina has endorsed Sigalla and called the memo “devastating” and “disappointing.”

“Alvin and his wife have let down the community by selling out,” Molina said. “I personally felt that Nellie had sold out when she told me that she was going to take the money [from the Coalition for Kids].”