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ELECTION 2024 -Voting is more than a civic duty, a decision about the future, or using our voice in our democracy. It is also a form of self-defense. In the Eastside and Northeast L.A. communities of School Board District 5, that truth now has tremendous urgency.
To succeed trusted longtime public servant and School Board President Jackie Goldberg, two Latinas are vying in the high-stakes runoff election. Longtime special-education teacher and Eagle Rock parent Karla Griego is running with Goldberg’s endorsement as well as endorsements backed up by door-knocking muscle from United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), Parents Supporting Teachers (PST), unionized school professionals (CSEA), and East Area Progressive Democrats (EAPD). Opposing Griego is Graciela Ortiz, who is relying heavily on charter-school promoters in her campaign.
Haunting the current runoff is the debacle of former charter-school treasurer and District 5 board member Ref Rodríguez. He resigned from the School Board in disgrace in July 2018 after getting caught and admitting guilt in a scheme to misuse charter-school money to reimburse phony donors to inflate fund-raising for his 2015 campaign against predecessor and respected teacher Bennett Kayser. In that showdown, efforts to elect Rodríguez reached a shameless low by mocking Kayser in television ads for symptoms of Parkinson’s.
Goldberg came out of retirement to win the special election in a rout to replace Rodríguez in May 2019. District 5 stretches from Atwater Village, Hollywood, Elysian Valley, and Eagle Rock down through Pico Union to the Southeast Cities including South Gate and Bell. Charter-school backers in L.A. covet the seat, which represents heavily Latina/o communities. But they have never fully regained credibility after Rodríguez’ self-inflicted catastrophe.
In Graciela Ortiz, they have a candidate who is not so secretly aligning herself with their goals of putting more public dollars for education into private hands, with fewer safeguards for transparency or against discrimination. On September 4, Ortiz held a joint campaign fundraising reception with the charter-school industry’s top-priority School Board candidate, Dan Chang, who is challenging Board Vice President Scott Schmerelson in District 3 in the San Fernando Valley.
Reinforcing concerns that Ortiz supports privatization of public-school resources is her recent interview with LAist. On the high-profile and inflammatory issue of co-locating charter schools in the middle of public-school campuses, Ortiz told the news outlet that she’s “seen co-locations benefit students from both charter and public schools."
That weak answer, highly deferential to charter-school promoters, is notable in that outgoing Board President Goldberg cast a decisive fourth vote on the board, in a 4-3 result, to rein in abuses of co-location privileges conferred to charter schools. Karla Griego has vowed to scrutinize co-locations to prevent fraud, bullying, and usurpation of shared spaces by charter schools at L.A. public-school campuses, such as occurred at Logan Early Education Center in Echo Park and Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies (VOCES) in Sun Valley.
In its endorsement of Karla Griego in late September, the L.A. Times stated clearly that Graciela Ortiz is “backed by charter school advocates.”
Reinforcing that conclusion — and re-aggravating the painful memories of Ref Rodríguez, whose fund-raising practices foreshadowed an ethics crisis — are donations taken by Ortiz for her campaign to represent Eastside communities by a who’s-who of wealthy Westside donors that frequently bankroll pro-privatization candidates. Among them are Megan and Peter Chernin of Beverly Hills, Heidi and Richard Landers of Santa Monica, Kathrine and Frank Baxter of Pacific Palisades, and Lynda Rae and Stewart Resnick of Century City. Ortiz donors also include Mike Rosenberg, in Encino, a past supporter of charter-school promoter Antonio Villaraigosa.
Ortiz enters the final week of her campaign against Griego also weighed down by other baggage. Earlier this month a Superior Court judge refused to release Ortiz from a lawsuit alleging she attempted to cover up a case of molestation involving a minor student whom she invited to work at a get-out-the-vote entity she oversaw in 2021 with longtime consort Efren Martinez.
The red flags around Ortiz are numerous and worrisome. But unless voters tune in enough to spot the huge differences between these two Latina candidates in a heavily blue district, the outcome of the contest may be a coin flip. That risk underscores the duty of informed neighbors to alert their friends, family, and coworkers to the danger that Ortiz signifies. And it’s up to Eastside and Northeast L.A. voters to use our ballots to defend ourselves against the re-emergence of another Ref Rodríguez.
(Marc Anthony López is an organizer for economic, social, and racial justice and an advocate for public education from East Los Angeles.)
(Eileen Hatrick is a retired 40-year teacher and principal in Northeast Los Angeles. A mother and grandmother, she is a respected advocate for climate action and leader in efforts to create public-school and community gardens. In 2019, she was elected by grassroots Democrats to be the Executive Board representative from what is now the 52nd Assembly District for the California Democratic Party.)
