That’s a wrap-up

For some reason, I didn’t feel nearly as invested in this election as I did two years ago.   It felt like there was so much more at stake two years ago, this year it just seemed like any which way the election went, it wouldn’t be THAT bad if any of the candidates won this time around.   This year the City Council race was kind of “meh” and even though the outcome was pretty much as my gut anticipated — although I expected Jane Sullwold to do much much better than what actually happened — Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft ran a nearly pitch perfect campaign.    She had collected nearly all the important endorsements, but she also had a good ground game and it showed in the outcome.

Tony Daysog ran a lean campaign but in the end the combination of name recognition and the door-to-door campaign put him over candidates that had a lot more money.   Name recognition was probably the biggest asset in Tony Daysog’s corner.   If Beverly Johnson had stayed in the race, it’s pretty much a gimme that she would have won, probably beating out Tony Daysog, but perhaps not Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft.

In the end I think Stewart Chen lost the campaign for himself because with the amount of money raised and the type of endorsements he had, he should have easily won over Tony Daysog.   I think the endorsement scuffle might have lost him some key votes and in the end, it doesn’t appear that the addition of the AEA endorsement was much help on election day.

Check the record

Let me just tell you, getting this video to this state took forever, between ripping the DVDs (two of them!) and getting them processed, spliced down and uploaded, I thought I wouldn’t get it done before Election Day.  Yes, I finally have video of the December 2009 vote for the anti-bullying curriculum.

Here’s the thing, at the beginning of this election, Trish Spencer embraced the fact that she:

support[s] the education of anti-bullying for all (differently-abled/special needs, ethnicities, gender, LGBTQ, race, religion) to ensure a safe learning environment.

But at every turn when she had an opportunity to vote for Lesson 9, she was determined to vote against it.   I’ll point out that in public critiques of Trish Spencer’s record, no one has called Trish Spencer “anti-gay,” but it’s interesting that she and her supporters attribute clarifying and pointing out Trish Spencer’s record on voting against Lesson 9 as calling her “anti-gay.”   Before a detailed record of her votes and the minutes became public, Trish Spencer conveniently omitted that she voted “no” on continuing using Lesson 9 until the complete curriculum was established.

Reading the tea leaves

Much like the “Bronco Bamma” girl, I’m really quite “done” with this whole election.  Between the national and local elections, next Tuesday can’t come fast enough.   While I’m not quite at the point of shedding tears quite yet, my stomach lining can’t take any more of the stress.  But I just wanted to point out that, if you haven’t had quite enough about election stuff and you still haven’t quite done enough research yet, I’ve been keeping my election roundup page quite updated.

And in the grand tradition of trying to read the tea leaves, my election Brain Heart Gut predictions.   I can’t recall if I did this for 2010, but my 2008 guesses were right on City Council wise, but I was way off on my School Board predictions.  So for those new to the Brain, Heart, Gut game, you make predictions based on who you logically think will win (Brain), who you want to win (Heart), and who you believe will win (Gut):

Who I’m voting for: School Board

Of all the things that I never imagine would spark a number of comments, I didn’t realize that funding for animals and an expanded Oakland Zoo would elicit such a response.   I wish V Smoothe’s blog was still around because she had these great posts about the Oakland Zoo and the Knowland Park expansion.   I’ll leave folks with this video from a guy who works (worked?) at the Oakland Zoo, who sums up the importance of the Zoo better than anyone else can:

His comments stuck with me the first time that V Smoothe published a post about this topic a few years ago and they are still relevant today.

But now, School Board…

Say it ain’t so

So…

There have been rumors circulating about endorsements for the School Board and City Council.  I’ve heard a lot of variations from different sources about what actually went down, but the best I can piece it out is this way.

I’ll start first by saying, I know that the initial reaction will be to point fingers at the two easiest targets in this tale, but I’ve been contemplating how everything shakes out and honestly, for me, the biggest issue here is one of integrity on the parts of the candidates who weighed the political math and determined it was worthwhile to either pull an endorsement or not endorse at all in order to reap the rewards of a more “valuable” endorsement.

You asked, they answered: Niel Tam, School Board candidate

1. Turnover of principals at Wood, Lincoln, Encinal and other schools have been high, how important do you think stable leadership is for schools?

I think it is important to have stable leadership in the schools. Over the 43 years in which I have been deeply involved with the Alameda schools, there has been large turnover of principals and district administrators, especially with an incoming superintendent. Some principals leave due to retirements and others move on for better opportunities. For principals and administrators, AUSD is one of the lowest paying Districts in the Bay Area. When I was elected to the school board in 2008, I encouraged that the superintendent look for principals within our teacher leaders. I would support an Administrative Internship Program for our district. During my own AUSD career, I was given this opportunity, the same time that another teacher leader, Diane Hale was. Both of us went on to become principals. I would support the re-creation of an Administrative Internship Program. The Teacher’s Union must also agree to such a program. Presently we have two elementary principals who were teachers in Alameda. In the 2011-2012 school year, there were 3 co-principals at Encinal High School. I believe that if we hire principals who worked and lived in Alameda, they would be more likely continue to work in Alameda, contributing to stable leadership.