We’re in crunch time folks. If YOU want to help defeat Carlos Bustamante, we are organizing a precinct walk tomorrow. We are meeting at my home from 9 am – 10 am to distribute campaign materials. My friends from the Libertarian Party will be helping out – what about you?
If you cannot make it but would like some of our fliers to distribute to your friends and neighbors please let me know via email.
My address is 2309 N. Spurgeon St. Call me at 714-606-7622 if you have any questions. Thanks in advance for your support!
I want to publicly acknowledge all the help we have received from George Collins, who is running for Mayor, and Irene Ibarra, who is running for the SAUSD School Board. They have both walked our materials all over town and we have reciprocated. Michele Martinez’ volunteers also have helped out and I thank them as well. And of course I greatly appreciate the help from my friends at the Libertarian Party. We also received endorsements this week from Planned Parenthood and ECCO. Gracias to all!
We are not going to change our town if we don’t work together…
They say,take your message to the people. Well yesterday was a great opportunity do just that; The Guaranty Chevrolet’s Annual Pancake Breakfast for Santa Ana High Schools.
The only candidates in attendance were,Council candidate Carlos Bustamante and candidate for School Board, Roman Reyna.
I was told the absent candidates did in fact send a message to us,loud and clear… “We Don’t Need Your Vote.”
Rick,
That is quite an assumption on your part. I had to work yesterday, as a teacher at Cerritos College. And I didn’t receive any notice about this breakfast. My daughter already graduated from Santa Ana High School, where she was a member of their water polo team – she was in fact their player of the year as a senior.
Why don’t you ask Bustamante why he sends his kids to private schools if he is such a believer in public schools? All my kids go to Santa Ana public schools. And they are all doing just fine. My oldest son is in fact a pitcher for the baseball team at Godinez High and he is a start student as well. Plus he can play Led Zep songs on his guitar, which is for me damn impressive!
while i highly respect your daughter’s achievements in Water Polo and your kids having gone to Santa Ana Schools…they are not running for a seat on the City Council
Rick,
Nice dodge there Rick. The classy thing to do would have been to apologize for your initial comments.
And you avoided the major issue I brought up – if Bustamante is such a believer in our public schools why did he put his kids in private schools?
Apologize for NO ONE showing up but Carlos and Roman? that i wont do. Read carefully,as you were not the only one pointed out.
Rick,
But you did say that those candidates who were not there believed they did not need the votes of the attendees. That is a gross assumption on your part.
And you continue to dodge the question I posed – if Bustamante is such a believer in our public schools why did he put his kids in private schools?
Why Carlos sent his kids to private school is a question for him.
Rick, while I was going to express concern over your pancake-breakfast litmus test and inform you that there are other ways of determining a candidates position on issues that affect you – other than a pancake breakfast. Of course, to Rick a little white flour, sugar, oil and eggs are the stuff that makes for an informative candidate forum even if candidates had not been informed of this wide reaching forum where they could reach literally tens of voters maybe even dozens and instead spent their time wastefully walking door to door followed by calling voters to personally speak to as many voters as possible. How thoughtless of them when Rick was waiting patiently over at the white four & sugar dispensary, supporting our public schools and car dealerships for them to arrive.
Rick, if I were you I wouldn’t even bother to vote – that will show them.
Rick,
This is straight from Bustamante’s campaign website:
“Education is a topic that is very near and dear to me. As the husband of a dedicated Santa Ana Unified School teacher, I understand the vital role that education plays in Santa Ana. I will partner with the Santa Ana Unified School District to raise test scores and bring back the exceptional academic reputation that this grand old city once enjoyed.”
Bustamante’s distrust in our schools is clearly shown. He claims he wants to “bring back the exceptional reputation” that our city once had. Does this mean that we currently do not have great schools? Well by sending his kids to private schools he is telling everyone, “Yeah, our schools are great for YOU people but there is no way that I’ll be sending MY kids to them”.
I think we have great schools with amazing teachers. The problem lies with students who are inadequately motivated to succeed in school and the lack of resources available to parents to help encourage them. This is a social problem rather than an educational one.
The problem lies with students who are inadequately motivated to succeed in school and the lack of resources available to parents to help encourage them.
I love it. At the end of the day, apologists for the public system blame their failures on darned students who just refuse to learn!
…if Bustamante is such a believer in our public schools why did he put his kids in private schools?
Art, I realize you think you’ve hit on some genius gotcha question, but all you’ve done is displayed more flawed thinking.
Your false premise is that sending one’s children means a person doesn’t want public schools to be good. One doesn’t follow from the other.
I send my kids to Catholic school, but I very much want our public schools to be improved because the current system of institutionalized mediocrity harms society by mostly churning out under-educated kids — and that affects me regardless of where my kids go to school.
Note To Self:
As per ANON POST #8
1 on 1 conversation with voters and their students at events that matter to them, is less important than impersonal phone calls.
Matt/Jubal,
You wrote “I very much want our public schools to be improved,” but you also admitted previously that you voted for Steve Rocco for the Orange Unified School District. Care to explain that one?
Rick,
If Art wasn’t informed of the Guaranty Chevrolet pancake breakfast, and on top of that had duties to fulfill for his employer, don’t you think it’s a little unfair to presume that he “had a message”?
Your initial post strikes me like the famous unfair question, “So when did you stop beating your wife?”
BTW, do you know how much money Guaranty Chevrolet raised for Santa Ana High Schools?
Thanks.
First,as i said in an earlier post, he was not the only no show. I don’t know how much was raised.
Yeah, Art, as I’ve explained before, I didn’t know who Rocco was, but the only other choice was the teachers union candidate, Phil Martinez. So I voted against the teachers union candidate.
Now maybe you can try to explain the illogic of your question for Rick. Not that I expect you to actually respond directly and rationally. That would be out of character.
Jubal,
You voted on pure ignorance and what the residents of Orange got was a person that was a little on the side of crazy. Rocco cost the city several thousand dollars in wasted tax payer money and legal fees. You could have left that part of the ballot blank but you decided to vote along party lines and go against a Democrat. Tisk Tisk Jubal, and you call yourself politically informed.
As for your comment in #10, once again you’re arguing through sheer ignorance. You went to private schools yourself, how can you know how a public school in Santa Ana works? Can you put yourself in the typical Santa Ana student’s shoes and make that same comment?
Most students are first generation Americans with parents who speak a foreign language at home. Unlike other Americans, most students in Santa Ana cannot come to their parents to help them with homework. Don’t you think this reality would seriously harm a student’s effort to learn?
Combine that with an incompetent school board (remember that 5.2 million we lost through pure stupidity?) and what we get is a circular system where students are becoming pessimistic about their place in education and parents who cannot find adequate resources to help them. Lay off the teachers, its the current leaders that eventually eff things up for our city.
Why would you vote for a politician if you knew nothing about him? I hope you realize the damage you’ve done for your city and the children that learn there.
The pancake breakfast at the Chevy place is the largest get together of students, teachers and parents on a school sports fund raiser for all the SAUSD High Schools.
“For the candidates who want to represent the voters and parents at the school board level, and then not know about this breakfast. Who are they going to represent, if not the students, teachers, and parents? “
Roman Reyna, (as told to me at the pancake breakfast)
‘I love it. At the end of the day, apologists for the public system blame their failures on darned students who just refuse to learn!‘
I would normally agree here, but since Matt is trying to spin his and Busty’s lack of belief in the public schools and did indeed vote for Rocco, I have to consider the source. Perhaps he was trying to sabotage the public schools to give his parochial schooled children an extra boost in the comparative quality of education (kind of like raising taxes on the poor), but what’s more likely is that he was just apathetic about his vote because it actually didn’t affect him in the slightest.
On the other hand, Rocco’s election gives one hell of a boost to voucher-program advocates now, doesn’t it? Your tax dollars at work.
SMS
Rocco cost the city several thousand dollars in wasted tax payer money and legal fees.
“The city”? That would be OUSD, you mean. And you’re calling me uninformed?
Rocco is one of 7 trustees. He had no impact, good or ill, on OUSD education. Trying blame him for the state of OUSD education IS ignorant.
As for your continuing effort to blame the students for the failure of a system that serves its employees above all else: so what if they’re first generation?
My wife arrived here from Mexico when she was 5. She didn’t speak a word of English when she started school (a public school, mind you). No ESL, no bilingual. Yet she learned English and got very good grades.
Excuses, excuses and more excuses.
Candidate Pedroza honored prior obligations. That’s a good thing.
I certainly wish Pulido, Sarmiento, Bustamante and Alvarez would COMPLY
with COSA ordinances stating you cannot plant political signs in the parkway. And their most recent display of hubris – mounting political signs at a religious compound – flies in the face of separation of church & state.
Kick the bumbs out.
Vote Pedroza, Lisann Martinez & Michele Martinez on Nov. 4.
IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE.