Incumbent Oscar de la Torre blames the incidents on miscommunication and human error.
By Jonathan Friedman / The Malibu Times
During last-minute Election Day campaigning, an advertisement in last week’s issue of The Malibu Times for Board of Education incumbent candidate Oscar de la Torre became controversial when two people listed as endorsements said they did not support De la Torre.
Mike Matthews, former Malibu High School principal and Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District administrator, issued an e-mail to the community saying he had not given the endorsement. Board of Education member Ben Allen told The Times on Saturday that he had been waiting to meet with De la Torre before he could back him. The next day he said he had met with him, and was comfortable enough to give the endorsement. De la Torre, who earlier in the campaign had to remove Malibu Foundation for Youth and Families cofounder Laure Stern’s endorsement from his Web site when she requested it, blamed the incidents on miscommunication and human error.
The De la Torre ad appeared in The Times on Thursday. Matthews, a Malibu resident, sent an e-mail to people in the community, which was obtained by The Times on Saturday, to clarify that he had not endorsed De la Torre.
“Mr. De la Torre did ask me last week for my endorsement and I respectfully declined,” wrote Matthews, who became superintendent for the Manhattan Beach Unified School District in July.
Matthews could not be reached by phone for comment.
De la Torre said in an interview on Saturday that he listed Matthews in the ad because he had heard Matthews endorsed all the incumbents. He said he left Matthews various messages, and by the time they got in touch and Matthews declined to endorse him, the ad had been submitted and it was too late to adjust it.
“The only reason why I would even think about him is because he started endorsing candidates … I had no reason to believe or suspect that he wouldn’t endorse me,” De la Torre said. “I worked with him for many years on the school board. I was one of two school board members that endorsed him to become superintendent.”
De la Torre never publicly stated he wanted Matthews to be the SMMUSD superintendent when he was briefly considered a candidate in 2006. De la Torre said he and one other board member supported him behind the scenes.
In the election article that appeared in last week’s issue of The Times, Matthews was not listed among De la Torre’s Malibu endorsements. De la Torre had listed Matthews in an initial e-mail to the newspaper’s editorial department, but then updated his endorsement list without Matthews’ name prior to the newspaper going to print. De la Torre said this was evidence he was not trying to be deceptive with the ad. The Times mistakenly did not include former Board of Education member Pam Brady on De la Torre’s endorsement list in the article. A correction was made on the Web site.
The situation involving Stern occurred early in the campaign. De la Torre removed her name after she contacted him. He told The Times that her name had appeared on the site because he had listed endorsements from his 2006 campaign when he put up the site.
Regardless of the endorsement controversy, Allen said, “If he’s re-elected I’m looking forward to working with [De la Torre] for us all to be a better board. I really hope that we come out of this stronger and ready to tackle the difficult issues ahead.”
It was not known at press time who had been elected to the school board. The candidates are incumbents Oscar de la Torre, Barry Snell and Ralph Mechur, as well as challengers Patrick Cady, Laurie Lieberman, Chris Bley, Jake Wachtel and Nimish Patel. There will be at least one new person on the board after the election because current Board member Kelly Pye chose not to run again.
Election results will be posted online after the polls close at www.malibutimes.com