The Malibu Democratic Club also voted to support Measure BB, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s
$268 million facilities bond measure.
By Ward Lauren / Special to The Malibu
The Malibu Democratic Club last Wednesday during a meeting at the Point Dume Clubhouse selected its endorsees for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education and Santa Monica College Board of Trustees elections. Four seats are up for grabs in both races, and the local Democratic group selected four candidates for each one.
For the SMMUSD race, the club selected incumbents Emily Bloomfield and Oscar de la Torre as well as activists Kelly McMahon Pye and Barry Snell. Dr. Nancy Greenstein, incumbent chair of the SMC board, received an endorsement, along with David B. Finkel, Louise Jaffe and Andrew Walzer.
All endorsed candidates for both boards are Santa Monica residents, and they all also received the backing of the powerful Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights organization in August.
There is an additional candidate in each race who did not get the endorsement. Incumbent Shane McLoud is running for a second term on the SMMUSD board and Sunset Mesa resident Thomas Donner is challenging for a seat on the SMC board.
The SMMUSD board candidates, each of whom already boasts a staggering list of endorsements, all spoke highly of the district and what they said were its achievements, with a caveat of yet being able to do better, which they felt their elections would help bring about.
“Over the last four years, student achievement has increased rather dramatically, and that’s really on many levels,” Bloomfield said. “I think we still realize that there is an achievement gap, and it’s still, unfortunately, correlated with economic status.”
Snell said he felt that his experience as a single parent and as a volunteer in activities at school gave him a valuable perspective. “I believe we have a really strong school system and it has done a very good job of trying to close the achievement gap, but we’re nowhere near where we’d like to be,” he said. “I’ve worked with a number of struggling children and I think my insight into how to deal with them will assist the board in closing the gap.”
Pye added, “We have a great school district but there’s more work to be done. It’s my strong belief that making our schools desirable and effective for all our children-the struggling student of modest achievement and the student of advanced achievement, as well as every child of every diverse background-is critical to achieving the community support that has kept our district so strong.”
The only candidate and sitting board member who attended schools in the city of Santa Monica, de la Torre, said he has worked to build coalitions for the benefit of youth. He founded the Pico Youth and Family Center and is currently its executive director.
“I put children first,” he said. “I believe in making schools community centers and improving campus safety, music and arts programs so that students can reach their full potential.”
One consistent theme that ran through the statements of the four candidates for the SMC board was support for the establishment of a satellite campus in Malibu. A significant question that was posed from the floor concerned how each would deal with the citizens who would be neighbors of the college in the area in which it was located. “We’ve made a commitment to work with neighbors as we develop this campus,” Greenstein said. “Nothing is going to happen without being vetted through this board. We made a survey to see what programs people who live in Malibu actually want. Basically this is about saving people trips to Santa Monica.”
Jaffe said she did not see a potential need for housing for students. “This is not planned as a major large facility here,” she said. “There will probably be about eight or 10 classrooms. SMC currently has about 500 Malibu residents taking classes in Santa Monica. What I’ve heard is they’re thinking of maybe 800 Malibu residents eventually taking classes, so no one’s talking about a huge campus coming to Malibu.”
Finkel said, “I think our obligation is to slowly and carefully fulfill our obligations on Proposition S, to work in tandem together with the people of this good city. We have to make sure we do our very best to regulate what we do.”
Walzer added, “We have commitments to Malibu because Malibu residents helped support our bond measure. So I’m committed to a participatory development of a satellite campus here. I think we need to work with the residents to make sure that traffic issues are mitigated, for example.”
Also at the meeting, the club voted to support Measure BB, a $268 million SMMUSD facilities bond measure.