Can I get a big “Ruh-Roh?” I’ve just stumbled across a bulky complaint filed today with the Registrar of Voters, against the candidate statements of all five of the beleaguered “reform” trustees of the Capistrano Unified School District – “Lopez-Maddox,” Bryson, Christensen, Addonizio, and Winsten. And I understand that this complaint could essentially put their campaigns on hold for up to thirty days, while a judge considers the merits.
Let’s start with the stuff all their statements have in common. With this Board’s typical clueless arrogance they spend most of their time making boasts about their recent achievements that are at best arguable and often false, ignoring the fact that the Elections Code expressly limits these statements to their education and qualifications.
- All the statements commence by complaining about how hard it is to bring change when the District spends most of its money on “salaries/benefits for public employees” [which ironically Maddox and Bryson are] but as the plaintiff points out, “the highest expense for any California school district will be employee salaries, so it is confusing to the voters to suggest that Capo is any different.”
- They all falsely brag about balancing the district’s budget, when in reality they’ve been tapping into its reserves.
- They all brag about “refusing to raise taxes,” when not only was nobody trying to get them to raise taxes, they also would have no ability to.
- They all falsely brag about “reducing administrative expenses,” when they are actually paying the new Supervisor a much higher salary than the one they terminated.
- They throw in the words “conservative” and “family values” which are political words inappropriate here. Not to mention, their claim to have pursued “conservative fiscal policies” is absurdly false by any stretch.
- Speaking of inappropriately political, they include the address of their website, which includes vicious and dishonest political attacks on the people running against them, and those people’s families.
- Most of them boast of “reducing class size” which is UTTERLY FALSE – class sizes have risen during their tenure.
- They all repeatedly claim that they did everything “despite union opposition” when there was no union opposition at all to most of what they list.
Ken Maddox? Ken Lopez-Maddox? Ken Maddox-Lopez?
Whatever it is this guy on the right is calling himself today, his candidate statement presents by far the richest trove for criticism and ridicule.
His job. Ken lists his occupation as a “businessman / tax consultant,” and also brags of having been a policeman for 17 years, as well as a volunteer firefighter. In actuality his main job is as a state employee, at the Board of Equalization. He also phrases the sentence about his education deceptively, implying his Masters Degree in Management is from UCLA, when it is actually from the less prestigious National University.
His record as legislator. He takes credit for a lot he didn’t do during his time as Assemblyman. He claims to have authored California’s Amber Alert system, which was actually authored by George Runner. He claims to have authored the “Safe Surrender” bill to protect newborns, but that was authored by Jim Brulte. He exaggerates his work toward class size reduction in the legislature, which is ironic as he has now overseen his own District’s withdrawal from the voluntary class-size reduction program, and its growing classes.
His name. It’s still unclear why he adopted his third wife’s maiden name; it’s said to have been an attempt to mend bridges after a very Latino-unfriendly political career. But this has caused the most comical confusion. As the plaintiff points out, most of his career has been as Maddox, he originally ran for this Trustee position as Maddox, and he still appears on KFI’s John and Ken Show as “Ken Maddox” (which makes sense given that radio duo’s famed hostility to immigrants.) More recently he has been frequently calling himself “Lopez-Maddox” and it was under that name that this recall was approved by the Board (after getting way over the number of required signatures, but under the name “Maddox.”) Adding to the confusion, the displays in the lobby of the “Taj Mahal” where the Board meets say “Ken Maddox-Lopez,” and that is also the formulation he used in this candidate statement. After detailing all this, the plaintiff charmingly concludes:
[…his] real name must appear on the ballot, not a fictitious name that will mislead voters, especially in the context of a recall election… [Therefore] Petitioner is entitled to a peremptory writ of mandate ordering Respondents to change the name of “Ken Lopez-Maddox” of Maddox-Lopez to his most commonly used names of “Ken Maddox-Lopez/Ken Maddox.”
Sadly, Ken will be unable to produce or disseminate any campaign material until the judge sorts out that great puzzle.
And that’s today’s Breaking Bad News for the Board…
Thank you Vern! Great expose on these incompetent fools. CUSD knows how bad these people are and the tidal wave that is going to remove them is huge. Their replacements are balanced and sane, which are two traits CUSD desperately needs.
Expose the incumbents by pointing out that a complaint has been filed against their ballot statements? Yeah, that’s going to save the CUSD. I know it must have slipped Vern’s mind, but a complaint was also filed against one of the challengers (I’m sure that fact had nothing to do with the omission). Let’s wait until a judge rules on the complaints (all of them), then you can go on with your the incumbents are dirtbags and liars (if the judge rules in favor of the complainants), or you can blast the judge on how stupid he/she is for not striking the statements (if the judge rules in favor of the defendants).
Well, now that we know how the court ruled in all of the ballot statement cases, it looks like Vern was just a tad over-the-top in his “analysis”…or was that just frustrated wishful thinking?
LOL!
You caught Maddox with his pants on the ground!
I think I can see his Lopez outlined…………………
Paula Was Here,
Or is it his Maddox?
On the Registrar’s website it already shows all the candidate’s statements, isn’t it too late to file a complaint? If not, can they somehow add in there how the first half of all the reform statements are identical and not pertaining to that individual really and only the last paragraph has anything to do with the individual candidate? CUSD Recall had the Sheila’s statements thrown out for less by threat of suit, and they backed out due to financial burden…shouldn’t the burden be on the Registrar to make sure it passes the “smell test” before they publish it?
you have 10 days to challenge candidate statements. I think the window is now closed.
aLOHA!
Benecke backed off because the reform group had her and Draper dead to rights on false and misleading statements on the merits. Benecke and Draper then weaseled by caving to avoid an official slap by the court, like the the one they had just gone through with the DA when they had to admit in writing to serial legal violations to avoid prosecution. This back-off at the last minute was an old Fleming favorite to avoid a well-deserved official black eye and to allow the kind of apologist nonsense like the previous post here.