Four seats are up for grabs on the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board and on the Santa Monica College Board.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
Campaign season unofficially kicked off Sunday when the powerful political group, Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, or SMRR, made its endorsements for several elections. The group voted on whom to back in Santa Monica’s municipal elections, but it also selected candidates for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education and the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees.
More than 160 people attended the SMRR convention at Olympic High School in Santa Monica. They listened to speeches from all the candidates and then voted to determine who would benefit from the large amount of money and army of supporters that comes with a SMRR endorsement.
With four seats up for grabs in the SMMUSD election, SMRR gave its support to incumbents Oscar de la Torre and Emily Bloomfield and education activists Kelly McMahon Pye and Barry Snell. Sidonie Cheryl Smith also sought the SMRR endorsement, but failed to get enough votes. Incumbent Shane McLoud did not attend the convention. He was elected in 2002 without SMRR’s backing. The fourth board member whose term expires this year, Julia Brownley, is not running because she won the Democratic nomination for the 41st Assembly District in June and will face the Republican challenger Tony Dolz in November.
All of the candidates for the SMMUSD election are Santa Monica residents. Malibu’s lone candidate in the November election is Thomas Donner, who is running for one of the four seats being contested in the SMC Board of Trustees election. The former chief business officer of the college and two-time interim president, Donner wants to be on the board as the college goes through a tough financial battle with its teachers. Donner, who retired this year after 30 years as a college employee, attempted to get a SMRR endorsement, but fell far behind in the voting to four others: Andrew Walzer, David Finkel, Louise Jaffe and incumbent Nancy Greenstein. Those candidates are supported by the college faculty, which has been in a contract dispute with the college for two years and wants a two percent raise.
During their speeches, candidates were allowed to bring up supporters. For three of the four faculty-endorsed candidates, Faculty Senate President Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein stood with them and sometimes spoke. He said that there are only four progressives running, not specifying Donner by name, but obviously referring to him as the outcast. The mostly left-leaning members of SMRR accepted this message.
“I was hoping there would be an open-mindedness and they [SMRR members] would look at the qualifications of the five parties and they would be making their judgments upon that rather than upon other activities and other points of view,” said Donner, who called himself a fiscal conservative, on Monday.
Donner said he decided to run for a seat on the college board because he believed it was losing a great deal of institutional memory, with three of the four incumbents deciding not to run, including 27-year board member Carole Curry. Donner said he does not think lacking the SMRR endorsement means he will not be able to win, although he admits it is an extra challenge. To get elected to office without SMRR’s support in an election that includes Santa Monica is not impossible, but it is difficult. Five of the seven SMMUSD board members won their seats with the group’s backing, as did four of the seven members of Santa Monica’s City Council. Besides the money and hundreds of active supporters that come with a SMRR endorsement, there is also the benefit that many Santa Monica residents vote without question for whoever is on the SMRR slate.
But winning without a SMRR endorsement is not unheard of. In 2004, Malibu resident Wisnicki was elected to the SMMUSD board without SMRR’s backing. Also, SMC Board of Trustee Margaret Quiñones was re-elected that year minus the SMRR support.