EFFECTING CHANGE AT THE LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT TOMORROW THROUGH THE BALLOT BOX

4LAKids Reader and Northeast Los Angeles community activist Daniel Wright writes 4LAKids:

7 March 2011

Los Angeles Voters:

If you were angered in 2009 when the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Board of Trustees took the $72 million Van de Kamps campus away from LA City College, TODAY you can spread the word for change in tomorrow's LACCD Trustee Board election.

If you read any of the six Los Angeles Times articles on fraud, bond abuse, and senseless waste of millions of dollars of your tax funds by incumbent Trustees Mona Field and Miguel Santiago and LACCD management, TODAY you can spread the word for change in tomorrow's Board election. READ THE SERIES HERE

If you were astounded when the LACCD Board leased out the newly constructed community college to a charter high school connected to Mayor Villaraigosa instead of opening the decade-long promised community college at Van de Kamps, TODAY you can spread the word for change in tomorrow's Board election.Voters all over Los Angeles are outraged, including Columnist Steve Lopez – READ HIS COLUMN HERE.

Direct your outrage for positive change: Please open your address book and send this message on to your friends and facebook/twitter followers: TOGETHER, we have a strong reason to go to the polls tomorrow and vote to change the way LACCD is running the largest community college bond construction program in the United States.  The LACCD works for the voters and the LA Times articles establish incompetent management of the LACCD's bond program at the highest level: the Board of Trustees who can be replaced with a slate of candidates who have committed to changing the culture at LACCD.

Here is what you and your friends may be wondering about.  Who can you vote for to carry out change at LACCD?  The reform candidate slate has promised to take control of the construction program and end the abusive practices highlighted by the LA Times, impose term limits on board members, restrict ability of construction contractors to finance Trustee elections, return to the Northeast voters the campus stolen away by Mayor Villaraigosa and his SEIU and Charter school cronies.

Voter turnout is historically low in the March municipal elections.  This means your getting to the polls is even more powerful because just a few votes can change the outcome of the election!

Here is the LACCD Board Trustee Reform Slate of Candidates I support:

Seat No. 1 Joe Essavi (endorsed by the LA Times in the 2009 Trustee election)

Seat No. 3 Joyce Burrell Garcia

Seat No. 5 Lydia Gutierrez

Seat No. 7 Erick Aguire

You have received in the mail three or more slick brochures and slates with the "construction contractor and public union endorsed" candidates. This is the list of candidates that should be REJECTED:

Mona Field (an incumbent pretending she is a new candidate on the ballot), Steven Veres, Scott Svonkin, and Miguel Santiago (an incumbent who voted to give the historic Van de Kamps Bakery building to the Mayor's unemployment programs). The construction contractors and unions want you to vote for the Villaraigosa machine and they have filled your mailbox with these slick flyers.

Send them a message by electing the LACCD Board of Trustee Reform Candidates listed above. And please help Get Out The Vote by passing information about the Reform Slate to others on your lists.

We can make a difference.

Daniel Wright

smf: In the interest of full disclosure: Dan Wright is an attorney bringing two taxpayer lawsuits against the LACCD in the above cited misbehavior in the Van de Kamps matter. I am a plaintiff in those lawsuits.