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…

You asked, they answered: Ron Mooney, 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 believe effective leadership is very important at each school site, and stability is a crucial part of that. As a parent of students that have attended two listed sites and as a Board member, I realize the difficulty in finding leadership that fits each sites with all the expected skills. While turnover can be frustrating in the short term, I believe it is more important to find the best leaders, whom we can support and develop for long-term leadership.

Almost final School Board questionnaire

Big news on the School Board election front, Alameda Education Associates (AEA) aka the Teacher’s Union, has made their endorsements for School Board already.  Alameda Patch has the details on this one:

A panel of AEA members interviewed all nine school board candidates recently, and all candidates participated by answering written as well as oral questions, according to the AEA. The teachers’ union chose three people to endorse for the following reasons, the release said:

“Trish Spencer, incumbent, is a parent, attorney and proven advocate for students and education in Alameda. Trish always puts the interests of the students first.

“Barbara Kahn, parent and grandmother, has been active in Alameda schools for over 50 years, and believes a voice must be raised in support of our children. Barbara wants the focus to be on what is truly important in a school district — students, teaching and learning.

“Jon Murphy teaches nursing at Merritt College, serves as co-chair of the California Community College Budget Committee, and just completed his doctorate in educational leadership. Jon is excited about students achieving their highest potential in a district where parents, teachers and staff can work collaboratively.”

I’ve updated the Election 2012 roundup to reflect these new endorsements.

And the news about Beverly Johnson dropping out is official, from Peter Hegarty of the Alameda Journal.  And she is now endorsing Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft.

Now on to the questions!

I cleaned them up a bit, feel free to add more suggestions, I’ll send these off on the first of September: