Austin abandons his bid for L.A. school board
Parent advocate Ben Austin abandoned his effort Friday to get onto the ballot in the Los Angeles school board election March 3, even as a political consultant said she had been wrongly blamed for his failure to gather enough signatures.
Austin had been trying to determine if he could challenge the city’s finding that he still needs 107 voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. Earlier this week, he said political consultant Sue Burnside had collected the signatures in the wrong school board district.
While Austin sent e-mails to supporters about the end of his campaign, Burnside issued her own e-mail telling clients she had not been hired by Austin. The veteran consultant said an independent contractor had “misrepresented himself” to Austin as one of her firm’s workers.
“The fact is Ben Austin is not my client. Burnside & Associates is not and has never been under contract to him or his campaign. I have never met Mr. Austin,” she wrote. “I did not circulate or supervise Ben Austin’s petition drive; I was on my honeymoon in South America.”
Austin brushed off the e-mail, saying hours later that Burnside had apologized to him for the campaign problems.
In an e-mail, he said he had been billed by Burnside’s firm, which may have had “renegade staff within her office taking on side projects without her knowledge.”
Friday’s dueling e-mails left two teachers as the only candidates running for the seat being vacated by school board member Marlene Canter, who represents a district stretching from Westchester north to Encino and east to Hollywood.
Pacific Palisades resident Mike Stryer, who teaches at Fairfax High School, will face off against Hollywood resident Steve Zimmer, who teaches at Marshall High School.
Austin, 39, works in the office of City Atty. Rocky Delgadlilo and has a part-time job as executive director of the Los Angeles Parents Union, the organizing arm of Green Dot Charter Schools. The Coldwater Canyon resident had billed himself as a reform candidate, boasting that he had the support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Green Dot founder Steve Barr, former Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad.
In his farewell e-mail, Austin said he was sorry about the need to end his campaign. “It has been an honor to run for LAUSD school board,” he wrote.
--
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
