We are PUSD parents and we urge you to vote “Yes” on Measure A on Tuesday, June 5. If passed by voters in Pasadena, Altadena, and Sierra Madre, Measure A will change the way we elect School Board members. Currently, candidates run for office on a district-wide “at large” basis. Under Measure A, School Board members would be elected from seven geographic districts.
If passed, Measure A will:
- Save the district more than $200,000 every election year – funds that will go into classrooms.
- Give voters a stronger voice by bringing the School Board closer to neighborhoods.
- Make the School Board more responsive and accountable to the community because each School Board member will have few constituents.
- Make it easier for individuals to run for the School Board because they can run from a smaller geographic area rather than the entire Pasadena/Altadena/Sierra Madre district, which requires much more effort, time and money to reach all those voters. This should attract a larger pool of candidates.
- Make it easier for School Board members to act collaboratively, because they won’t be running against each other, but running from separate districts.
- Comply with the requirements of the California Voting Rights Act of 2003. If the current “at large” system is challenged in court, the school district could face millions of dollars in costs and then be forced to change the process anyway. Measure A gives voters – rather than judges -- an opportunity to bring about this needed change.
Measure A has been endorsed by a large and diverse group of civic leaders, including Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard, former Sierra Madre Mayor Bart Doyle, Dr. Sandra Thomas (Altadena Town Council chair), Bill Podley (past chair, Pasadena Chamber of Commerce), Roberta Martinez (Pasadena Latino Coalition), Yvonne Brown (NAACP), Stella Murga (Pasadena Youth Center), Bob Harrison (former president, PUSD board), Antranik Zartarian (Armenian Community Coalition), George Brumder (Pasadena Educational Foundation), Joan Fauvre, Ken Chawkins, Pasadena City Council member Steve Madison, Diana Peterson-Moore, Pixie Boyden, Dr. Victor Gonzalez, Richard Moon, Chris Chahinian, Bernardean Broadous, the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and United Teachers of Pasadena.
A diverse volunteer task force, comprised of residents of Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre, spent the past ten months meeting, discussing, planning and reaching out to the community for input. They held dozens of community meetings and did a remarkable job of getting input from many people who represent all segments of our communities. They considered all of the various demographic facts and figures and have created seven equal districts. The task force made a point of not drawing the geographic district boundaries to protect existing School Board members. Despite this, the School Board voted to approve the task force’s consensus recommendation.
Measure A will be a positive change for our community and our students. We urge you to vote "Yes."
Thank you.
Peter Dreier and Terry Meng
Ed Honowitz is simply the board member assigned, by the board, to specifically oversee Sierra Madre Elementary. That's an internal mechanism of the board, of which voters have absolutely no control over, at all. State Law says that every board member is ultimately responsible for and representative of every school in the district, despite some board choosing to assign specific members specific liaison duties. This remains the same whether the board is elected at-large or via sub-districts.
richard, mr. ed is our rep whether we voted for him or not. he will remain so, either way. measure a just makes it stick a little longer, like sticky gum on a pair of sneakers.
Richard: you suggest all 7 members of the board will be accountable to my concerns, even though I only can vote for 1. Are you assuring me that members from another district are just as likely to return my call or emails as the at large members are now? How do you know? I know you quote language that school board members have a duty to all kids, not just those in their district, but is that not the same for all elected reps? A congressman from Alabama still has a duty to do what is right for the US as a whole, including me. In city politics, Jacque Robinson has a duty to me a resdident of pasadena, but will refer my inquiries to my man Masuda. What distinguishes this from those? Dr. Dreier: you argued today in the Sun that current board members are in competition with each other for seats. How so? Is Selinske or Honowitz's seat threatened by Ramon or Scott? I don't get your point. Please elaborate. How does the current system create competition amongst incumbents for each others' seats?
Peter: what do you mean by making it easier to act collaboratively because they are not running against each other? Are they running against each other in the current system? For the second time, please explain.
The actual letter of the law. It isn't a ideological or conceptual thing about elected representation, it's an actual codified requirement specific to School Boards in the state of California (I don't have the statute number on me at the moment, unfortunately, or I'd post a link). Members of Congress are only legally responsible to their constituents, though morally considered responsible for the whole country in aggregate. Similarly, City Council representatives are only legally responsible to their constituents. School boards are different. Regardless of the system used to elect them, they are required to be responsible for the entire school district, and every school and student within it. Acting without regard to the entire district opens a board member up to legal action, including potential ouster and fine and even jail time if it's egregious.
The idea that board members will or do listen to you because you *might* not vote for them next time is based on a pleasing and pleasant fantasy, and besides starts with the assumption that sitting board members are fine and dandy with violating existing law, and only affect the appearance of not doing so because they're supremely scared of losing a half dozen or so votes and thus their jobs.
I'm not Peter, and I don't agree with all of his arguments, but this one I can answer, as I was part of the discussion that determined which district was going where. The answer is that it made the most sense to assign the districts where the existing incumbents' terms were going to be up at a particular year to have their sub-district election that year (that is, the one where there are two incumbents both up for election in 2013, that area should go up in 2013; where there are two up in 2015, that area goes up in 2015., etc) That started us in a direction that, while we weren't necessarily married to it, made a certain geographical sense, and which set Central Pasadena as being an even-numbered seat, and south-central Pasadena and San Rafael as being odd. It was then decided that setting West Altadena as odd would face the least amount of opposition from the incumbents there (and, wow, we were wrong about that, as apparently *nothing* was going to stop opposition from the guy who voted "Yes" twice on this process). Since putting both halves of Altadena up at the same time seemed like a bad idea (fears of encouraging balkanization), that set Eastern Altadena as even. (continued in next reply)
The question was then of either setting Sierra Madre et al at Odd (and NorthWest Pasadena to Even), and thus creating a sort of weird SOUTH block which would wind up creating some sort of north-vs-south dynamic, or setting it to Even (and setting NorthWest Pasadena to Odd), and thus delay Sierra Madre's representative election by two years. We talked about that question for a long, long time, and most of us did our level-best to take up both sides of the question at different points, so that we weren't just being an echo-chamber. Ken stayed pretty much silent on the issue, while Bart argued very strongly for SM being an odd seat. In the end, everyone was pretty much swayed by the concept that it would be better to have a map without huge geographic blocs (that is, not pitting all the Northern/Western districts against all the Southern/Eastern ones; and we looked at historical data that argued pretty strongly that having districts distributed as-close-to-evenly-as-possible avoided exactly the sort of balkanization the Opposition here is worried about), that it would be better to have a map where the seats roughly matched up to existing incumbencies in terms of when the term was up (thus giving the locals the option of voting for the incumbent if they wanted to, rather than forcing them to not have that choice), and... (continued in the next one)
That's seriously the whole story on why SM's seat has the number it has. I agree that your theory is much more interesting, but if it *was* all just a big conspiracy to get Measure TT money, then it was an exceptionally subtle one that could have just as easily failed completely (the final vote on the numbers was unanimous on the Task Force, and, thanks to how much discussing we actually did on it, was centimeters away from being unanimous in the exact opposite direction)
How do you figure that, Tony? The school that individual board members are assigned to as liaisons is an internal decision that the votes don't have any effect on, whichever system we wind up with. There's no way of ensuring that, if he wins re-election, he would still be SM Elementary's liaison, nor any way of ensuring that whomever gets assigned the school would be any better, either. Plus, consider that in 2009, Ed Honowitz ran unopposed, as did Elizabeth Pomeroy. Under Measure A, they're in the same sub-district, so unless one of them decides to retire, they're not running unopposed anymore. And, even unopposed, Elizabeth got almost 500 more votes than Ed did back in 2009. Even if you get someone from SM to run against Honowitz in the regular at-large set-up, and got every eligible voter in SM to vote against Honowitz, you wouldn't guaranty a win against him, because when he ran unopposed in 2009 he got more votes than there are eligible voters in SM. Which is not to say I think you *shouldn't* go for that option, whatever happens with Measure A. I've got absolutely no dog in that hunt, and feel that democracy works best when there are a strong selection of choices and passionate people involved. But then, I also think Measure A would *help* that passion more than hinder it.
Exactly as much as they are under the current system. Which is to say, the good ones will, the lazy ones won't. That really doesn't change depending on how we elect them.
... but that *is* what it is, Tony. I'm guessing you meant that the other way around? Maybe we should've done this two years from now.