MEAN MAILERS --- As the Aug. 12 runoff election for the 1st District LAUSD school board seat draws near, potential voters are being inundated with campaign mailers, the overwhelming majority of which are sent by the Alex Johnson campaign and all of which malign education icon George McKenna (photo) and shed little light on Johnson.
One woman complained to the Soulvine that she had received nine mailings from Johnson that were nothing but smears against McKenna, and she’s angry about them and said she’s sorry she can only cast one vote for McKenna on Aug. 12.
Civil rights activist Pedro Baez of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, was so angry about the series of mailers Johnson has been sending to the people that Monday, Baez and his group filed a formal complaint with the Los Angeles Ethics Commission demanding “a probe into the false, misleading and slanderous mailers sent by the Alex Johnson campaign.”
While Baez has been upset by previous anti-McKenna mailings from Johnson, he said the mailer that arrived Monday was beyond the pale and was more than he could tolerate. “In it, Johnson verged on labeling McKenna a pedophile enabler as he alleged that McKenna covered up sexual abuses in the school district!” Baez shouted.
In his complaint to the Ethics Commission, Baez wrote: “I and other civil rights leaders formally call upon the Los Angeles Ethics Commission for a probe into the false and slanderous mailings from the Johnson campaign against McKenna. We are demanding that the commission issue a cease and desist order and impose the maximum fine against the Johnson campaign for the fraudulent attacks.”
At Tuesday’s press conference about the mailer, Baez blamed Johnson’s financial backers --- Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and Maria Elena Durazo of the LA County Federation of Labor --- “for this despicable act” and he said he “also urged the Ethics Commission to charge Ridley-Thomas “with gross violations of ethics and human decency and order him to send out another mailer apologizing to the voters of the LAUSD District 1 --- and for Alex Johnson to withdraw forthwith from the race for this seat.”
The people have given the Soulvine the two most recent Johnson mailers that have upset them so, and I must say they are really raw. Johnson has a one-note theme to his campaign mailings and it appears to be about child molestation as opposed to child education, and in that regard he has accused McKenna of some despicable stuff which I must investigate.
And while I’m investigating Johnson’s sex-tinged accusations against McKenna, I will probe Johnson’s lack of delineated credibility in the field of education. In his mailers, Johnson prides himself on having been an assistant district attorney (in the Bronx, N.Y.) “who prosecuted domestic violence, standing up for children and families who were victims of violence and abuse.”
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If that’s true, then why isn’t Johnson running for Los Angeles County district attorney? Lord knows we need prosecutors in the DA’s office, not on the school board!
“Our kids are being prosecuted enough!” declared a group of women Saturday when they found Johnson literature on the windshields of their cars. They’re right.
We need experienced educators on the school board, but education is a subject Johnson does not broach in his mailings. After further study we’ll discuss these things about McKenna and Johnson during the next couple of weeks.
(Betty Pleasant writes Soulvine for the WAVE newspapers … except for this … yet another … column which they refused to print. She is a longtime urban and South LA voice.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 60
Pub: Jul 25, 2014
