Earlier today I received the following Press Release relating to Vern’s favorite topics of late. The CUSD election and Measure H.
Note: This endoresment meeting was not part of the local city council endorsements event.
·PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Thomas Russell September 18, 2010
Spokesperson, Public Relations Officer For Immediate Release
Committee to Reform CUSD
(949) 294-8386
California Republican Assembly Endorses Entire CUSD Reform Slate
Mission Viejo, CA. The California Republican Assembly has officially endorsed the entire Capistrano Unified School District Reform Slate, which includes the following:
· Support the re-election of the “ABC Reform Trustees” (Addonizio, Bryson & Christensen)
· Vote “NO” on the Recall of Mike Winsten
· Vote “NO” on the Recall of Ken Lopez Maddox
Vote NO on the Union’s “Measure H”
Chartered in 1934, the CRA is the state’s oldest and largest Republican volunteer organization. Earlier this year, the CRA officially commemorated its 75th Anniversary. The CRA works to support and elect candidates who stand for conservative Republican principles. The CRA is an official ancillary of the California Republican Party. President Ronald Reagan called the CRA, “the conscience of the Republican Party.”
Powerful union leaders and their supporters are campaigning to take control of the Capistrano Unified School District on Election Day – seeking to replace the existing conservative Reform Trustees with a new pro-union majority, and with their ballot initiative known as Measure H, to literally take away from every voter 6 of our 7 school board votes.
Unions Seeking Control of the Board.
Three conservative Reform Trustees are up for re-election in November – the “ABC Reform Trustees” (Ellen Addonizio, Anna Bryson and Larry Christensen). Union sympathizers are campaigning aggressively to replace each of these well-respected trustees.
However, the union doesn’t just want to gain three seats – they want to gain control of the seven member board in one single election.
That is why they spent months and thousands of dollars to place an early recall election on the November ballot for two more conservative Reform Trustees – CUSD Trustees Ken Lopez-Maddox and Mike Winsten.
As a result, if the union succeeds in electing at least four of their pro-union candidates to the Board, they will have effectively taken control of the school district in one election. This is bad. But it gets worse.
Measure H – Union Seeking To Take Away 6 of Your 7 Votes.
The unions also spent months working to get Measure H on the November ballot – they want to reduce the board’s accountability to voters throughout the entire school district by changing the way school board representatives are elected in the future.
Today CUSD voters get 7 votes — 1 for each of the school board members. If the union’s Measure H passes – voters will lose 6 of their votes.
Passage of Measure H would diminish the voice of every voter and reduce board accountability – your vote will only influence 1 board member (not 7).
Voters could lose the right to vote for the trustee representing the area where their children attend school – or the area where their Mello Roos taxes are spent (resulting in taxation without representation).
No other Orange County school district elects their school board this way – but dysfunctional L.A. Unified does.
Local control by voters would be severely diminished – while union influence would be increased.
Unions spend more on politics than anyone – it is not in the best interest of students or taxpayers to increase their power.
The CUSD Board Has Implemented Many Positive Reforms.
Over the past three consecutive elections, voters elected each of the seven current conservative members of the CUSD Board of Trustees to restore honesty, integrity and accountability to CUSD – and they’ve accomplished much.
Bringing reform and positive change is especially difficult in a district which spends approximately 85% of its budget on salaries/benefits for public employees – most of whom are represented by powerful union leaders fighting to preserve an unsustainable status quo.
Despite continuous union opposition, they have successfully balanced the budget; stopped deficit spending; refused to increase taxes; reduced bloated administration; reduced union contract expenses by 10.1%; enacted strong anti-nepotism policies; created a district-wide facilities assessment; promoted conservative fiscal policies and family values; and fought to keep smaller class sizes.
This year, student achievement in CUSD soared to its highest levels. In fact, this year Capistrano Unified was the State’s highest achieving large school district!
To learn more about these important issues, please visit our website at www.cusdreform.com or contact:
Thomas K. Russell
Spokesperson, Committee to Reform CUSD
Telephone: (949) 294-8386
Email: reformCUSD@cox.net
# # #
Dog bites man. This “reform” board is a creature of CRA, Pacific Research Institute, Education Alliance, and Family something. So it’s not really interesting that they would endorse these guys.
What’s more interesting is the breaking story of the Teamsters’ Union backing Maddox and Winsten.
Vern. We each post Press Releases. This post does not contain my fingerprints other than posting it as received. There are at least two camps on the CUSD issue. Both sides are welcome to comment on this or any other story.
However, as a former unit president of the CRA, who served as vice chair of a Statewide Gubenatorial Convention held in Irvine I can report that collectively CRA issues many endorsements while denying others. CRA is not a rigged group of men sitting in a bar overlooking Huntington Beach.
When did Tom Russell move back into town?
Confused.
His press release has a telephone number. Why don’t you simply give him a call?
My sense is that you really don’t care to know.
Seems to me that the people pushing to over throw the current board, are the same ones who got kicked out of office a few years back.
The trial has not even started, for the criminal enterprise that the CUSD had turned into, and the members of that group are trying to lie their way back into the bank account.
The CRA does NOT speak for this Republican.
Where is the teamster press release?
I suspect that it is more false and misleading junk.
Any proof of your claim Vern, or are you again just seeking to advance your secret agenda?
Very accurate assessment from cook.
Anyone else bothered that cook and crock think of our local school district as a “bank account”? Therein lies the problem. That and some confusion over what “reform” means….
This press release is just a repackaging of the same pack of lies from the same pack of liars. Most people can recognize it by its smell by now: Beallsh*t.
Realty Check.
Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
Taking a swipe at the 75 year old CRA because the voting members disagree with your opinion is disappointing. No individual controls the entire body that participates in the balloting at CRA endorsement meetings.
Dawgonit! You figured it out.
I absolutely believe that the local school district is a bank account, and that is exactly why I cannot understand the unions demands of Status Quo.
It is clear that the union leadership are not smarter than a 5th grader as the union somehow thought that the check book keeps spending regardless of whether there was money in the bank or not.
This existing set of trustees has done a great job in trying to contain the hemorrhage that has come out of the state’s fiscal crisis.
Think about it, Saddleback just made their union take a 13.5% cut. Which is 1/3 higher than what our district has to weather.
I believe the “union” agreed with the impartial state mediator chosen by the district. Dawgone those ignorant state mediators with training and experience as trustees of large districts. They’re never as smart as anonymous blog posters who think teachers are boogeymen, right?
Republican allegiance continues to decline in Orange County. Until you can figure out why, your frustration will drive you to bash and blame others. I understand. But the next generation of voters is in school now. How will your efforts impact them?
Reality Check, your remark about forming young minds highlights the importance of this issue. We must stop the unions before they brainwash this generation of students that socialism is the path of the future. Teachers are not bogeyman and no one in this thread is claiming so. It is the Union that the teachers MUST contribute to that is the evil figure in this reality. That’s right, if you want to be a teacher you have no choice but to contribute to the Union and the Union uses this abuse to be the TOP SPENDER on lobbyists within California by a wide margin spending approximately $220,000,000 according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission.
You twist words pretty well behind you veil of anonymity Mr. Reality Check. Must be getting a REALLY good union stipend to keep toeing the Union line.
No stipend here. But I do take offense at the brainwashing idea. Teachers don’t bring politics into classrooms, but adults who bash teachers influence kids more than they know. And those who do it to save money will find the price exorbitant in the long haul. If there is some evil in banding together to give credence or weight to a political opinion — why give the OCGOP a pass?
P.S. The only line I’m toeing is a moral one I set for myself.
Reality Check, you are either not following or not aware of the Capo USD case involving the teacher banning non-liberal thought from the classroom and badgering students who did not agree with his Union liberal socialist tripe. That is simply a single example of the brainwashing that the Union attempts to use to push its agenda every day. By the way, the more indignant and less logical your responses get clearly indicates that we are striking pretty close to the unvarnished truth. Since you are anonymous, I cannot advance my paid mouthpiece theory further other than to remark that you certainly write like a paid lobbyist.
if you want to be a teacher you have no choice but to contribute to the Union
Geoff, I don’t think that’s true. There is one award-winning teacher I know at least, who is a big supporter of Measure H and overthrowing this “reform” board, and is a Republican who has chosen not to contribute to the Union but instead gives that portion of his pay to charity – United Way I believe. There is that option. You have to be represented by the Union but you don’t have to contribute to it.
Please put your comments along with your brain back in the crook pot it came out of. Your comments invoked my name “If I only had a brain”. Armchair quaterbacks are a dime a dozen but in your case it appears we arew getting a deep discount on that price.
First the union is not asking for status quo. They accepted the cutbacks without argument. What they did not agree to is that the cuts be permanent if funds become available. Anyone with an IQ above 40 would realize in this economy and the status quo in Sacramento this is not going to happen.
Second, the recall is not being run by the union but by a group of parents interested in seeing their children get a better education then the current board can deliver.
So get your facts right and then get an opinion. The problem stems from the legislature in Sacramento having no clue but promoting their agenda. Unable to balance a budget, promote a business environment that attracts companies, and generate a revenue stream they can afford. They should all be sent packing we couldn’t possibly do worse.
Funny thing is Reality Check, the California Teachers Association Union spent about $180,000,000 MORE on lobbying than the number 1 private entity (Source – California Political Reform Commission [the state agency charged with monitoring such things]}. They are trying to use their unfair spending power to target individual candidates by voting district to make the union even more powerful than the megalithic state budget buster it has already become. Unless voters continue to have the courage to stand up to those socialist bullies, unions such as CTA will continue to cripple California.
Just to clarify, Saddleback imposed the paycut on their classified, non-teaching employees. Their teachers were given a 9.7% paycut, and their administrators a 12.2% paycut. The teacher cuts were negotiated earlier this year, while the classified paycuts were unilaterally imposed.
While it makes perfect sense to think a group that represents hundreds of thousands of people would outspend a private entity that doesn’t, I must clear up some of your confusion. CTA, a statewide organization devoted to lobbying for education in California, is not endorsing local school board candidates in CUSD. Nor are they targeting individuals. You might be confusing them with our local teachers, many of whom live in our boundaries and have opinions in the upcoming election. (I’m sure they’ll get a chuckle over the idea that they have unfair spending power.)
Oh please, reality check – PUBLIC UNIONS HAVE OUTSPENT ALL OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND PUT THE STONE AROUND THE NECK AROUND CALIFORNIA. It may make sense to you that public employees not out earn their private counterparts, have pensions that are breaking the state, and flaunt their power through hired mouth pieces like you Reality Check – but it DOES NOT make sense to me and others who think that public spending on public employee benefits is out of control.
If the local teachers get a chuckle out of this then I am profoundly sad that we have such ill informed folks charged with forming young minds. Since you are hiding behind the cloak of anonymity you have an advantage over me since I cannot look up your union ID number.
You’d be more correct to blame the state’s economic woes on Prop 13, bad mortgages, a service-based economy, and overpopulation. It isn’t the teachers who serve students. And I’m curious where you get the idea I am a “hired mouthpiece” simply because I advocate for local control and reform for my children’s school district.
It makes me wonder who hired you?
Oh, Reality Check, you are starting to amuse me. I am using something that you might not have heard of or used in a long time – my REAL NAME. No one has hired me, I am a Republican and resident of Mission Viejo. I don’t need to lurk in the shadows of anonymity, hide the truth behind twisted logic and half truths and trite catch phrases – I will leave that to you and your union cronies.
You and I are unusual Geoff in that we feel free to use our real names. That’s because nothing we care to comment is going to hurt us professionally or socially. but if you’re going to keep ragging on Reality Check for using an alias, where’s your knickers-in-a-bunch over “What a Crock” who’s commented about two or three times more than RC but is on your side?
Honestly, Geoff? I might not have heard of a real name? Might not have used one in a long time? Or I might not have used yours? You might fare better under the cloak of anonymity. Really. In the meantime, you can call me John. John Zenger. Feel better?
Geoff, while I agree that there are problems with the teacher’s union, and with some unions in general, their members are not automatically liberal socialists, and you tossed that word around pretty freely up above. (By the way, wouldn’t a liberal socialist be a communist? Are there conservative socialists?)
Also, I’d hardly call spending on education in this state “out of control.” Depending on what the Franc is doing on a daily basis, California has either the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world, yet we rank extremely low among the states when you look at the percentage spent per student. Last time I checked we ranked 46th. We also have some of the largest class sizes in the nation. And we used to rank 50th for literacy. I think that may have improved.
Reality Check has an excellent point: the ultimate costs for your line of thought are going to be extremely high. We have become extremely skilled at producing stupid people out of our schools. The majority can’t identify Mexico on a map. Stupid people are easy to control and tend to react positively to demagoguery.
I understand your frustration and your fear. You are a father and are extremely close to this issue because of that. I hope for your kids’ sakes that they are in private schools. Mine would be because that is only pragmatic. However, as Jefferson pointed out, democracy depends on a free education. One can certainly argue what he meant by “free,” but the premise is sound. We have put our democracy at stake with our views on education. The worst view is, of course, that the purpose of education is to get a job. If that were true we would hardly be operating on the technology level of chalk and dry erase markers in the classrooms. As a society we need to discuss what the true purpose of an education is and I’m sure we’ll do that just as soon as we quit ignoring the issues of race and gender in this society.
Ripping on unions or teachers or administrators only compounds the problems. We need to work with the good teachers, the good union leaders, and the good administrators, to get rid of the abusers and time killers. Otherwise, we should just cut to the chase, put on jackboots and start practicing our goose-step.