L.A. mayor's picks lead in schools race
Partial returns from Tuesday's low-turnout, but free-spending, election appeared nearly certain to give Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa a majority of allies on the school board. If they hold, the mayor will enjoy increased influence over the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Both of the mayor's endorsed candidates had been favored to win, but faced spirited challenges.
The most-watched contest was in District 3 in the San Fernando Valley, where the mayor's pick, Deputy City Atty. Tamar Galatzan, a 37-year-old mother of two preschool-age boys, surged comfortably ahead of one-term incumbent Jon M. Lauritzen, a 68-year-old retired teacher whose campaign was funded largely by the school district's teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles.
In District 7, the Watts-to-Harbor area, retired senior school-district administrator Richard A. Vladovic led recently retired L.A. middle school principal Neal B. Kleiner. They were running to replace retiring incumbent Mike Lansing.
Galatzan and Vladovic would join two other Villaraigosa allies on the seven-member board: Yolie Flores Aguilar, who was elected in March, and Monica Garcia, elected last year.
Villaraigosa addressed a cast of city officials and well-wishers at the Galatzan victory party in Studio City. "This message is reverberating from San Pedro to the San Fernando Valley: It's time to come together to say we want safer schools, smaller schools. Parents deserve a greater voice in their schools."
In an earlier interview, he'd vowed to be personally assertive. "I didn't get involved in this issue to play around the fringes," he said. "I'm absolutely committed to this effort to turn around our schools."
Villaraigosa's support came with a flood of funding from a campaign committee he controlled. Vladovic outspent Kleiner by more than 13 to 1, pulling in $757,404.
The biggest spending occurred in the San Fernando Valley, where the teachers union defended Lauritzen, its closest ally on the school board. Villaraigosa's break with Lauritzen was sealed when he joined five of six fellow board members to oppose Assembly Bill 1381, which sought to give Villaraigosa substantial authority over the school district. The school board's subsequent lawsuit, which is working its way through the courts, has so far nullified the law on constitutional grounds.
