XPost: alt.california, ba.politics, alt.gossip.celebrities   
   XPost: rec.arts.tv   
   From: atatum@posliberals.org   
      
   For a couple of moms from working-class families hoping to   
   retain their seats on the Centinela Valley school board, it was   
   a stark lesson in machine politics.   
      
   In a small room at the Proud Bird restaurant near LAX, a group   
   of maybe 15 had gathered to support board members Sandra Suarez   
   and Gloria Ramos. Nearly everyone sharing finger foods that day   
   was connected to a community development corporation called   
   TELACU, which bills itself as the fifth largest Latino-owned   
   business in California.   
      
   There were architects, lawyers, consultants. And high-powered   
   figures from TELACU itself. Everyone in attendance wrote out two   
   checks for $99 — the highest amount that can go unreported in   
   campaign filings — one for Suarez, one for Ramos.   
      
   Donors included President and CEO David Lizarraga, who at the   
   time was chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and   
   has since been appointed by President Barack Obama to a key   
   administrative post in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Also   
   included was John Clem, the TELACU executive who heads up all   
   the construction projects in the Centinela district, as well as   
   the wives of both men.   
      
   All for two women in a tiny district that oversees just three   
   comprehensive high schools in Lawndale and Hawthorne.   
      
   “It was kind of odd,” Suarez said. “They were giving us money —   
   I’m not used to any of that. … To tell you the truth, I didn’t   
   even realize they were giving for us at first.”   
      
   The event was a window into the political machine that has been   
   picking leaders in the tiny district since 2008. In the two past   
   contested elections, TELACU has poured large amounts of money   
   into campaigns to elect their favored candidates who almost   
   always win.   
      
   TELACU won, too. Since 2008, the TELACU-backed Centinela Valley   
   school board has put two construction bond measures on the   
   ballot totaling nearly $200 million. Voters approved both, and   
   TELACU was awarded contracts to manage the construction projects.   
      
   Clem, president of TELACU Construction Management, did not   
   return calls from the Daily Breeze on Tuesday and Wednesday. But   
   Centinela Valley officials have pointed out that as a result of   
   the two successful bond measures — one in 2008, another in 2010   
   — major face-lifts have occurred or are in the pipeline for all   
   three campuses. The projects have replaced old, sometimes   
   crumbling facilities with state-of-the-art classroom wings,   
   media centers, offices and commons areas.   
      
   Critics, on the other hand, say the whole thing smacks of a   
   money grab for the interested parties at the expense of the   
   taxpayers.   
      
   “The problem with Centinela Valley, and so many school districts   
   and community colleges, is that they have become bond-passing   
   machines that milk the public to pay for lavish construction   
   projects, outrageous salaries and terrible loans,” said Mariano   
   Vasquez, the plaintiff in a lawsuit opposing a recently passed   
   parcel tax floated by Centinela Valley and four feeder   
   elementary school districts.   
      
   “This causes a very harmful misallocation of scarce resources   
   and capital that slowly brings ruin to the town.”   
      
   In recent weeks, Superintendent Jose Fernandez — who took the   
   helm roughly at the same time that TELACU began exerting its   
   influence in Centinela — has said publicly that the district   
   intends to try for a third construction bond. This announcement   
   came just days before a Feb. 9 story in the Daily Breeze   
   revealed that Fernandez amassed more than $663,000 in total   
   compensation last year. At least $215,000 of that came from a   
   one-time expense, but Fernandez — in exercising another generous   
   provision of his contract — also has taken a $910,000 loan from   
   the school district to purchase a home in Ladera Heights. He has   
   40 years to pay it off, at 2 percent interest — an unusually   
   favorable set of terms.   
      
   UNUSUAL DONATIONS   
      
   TELACU first demonstrated its ability to influence the outcomes   
   of Centinela Valley school board elections in 2009. The company   
   donated $28,000 to a political action committee called Citizens   
   for Better Schools, according to campaign finance reports   
   obtained from the Los Angeles County Register-Recorder’s Office.   
   Citizens For Better Schools, in turn, dished out $55,000 to   
   purchase mailers and other promotional materials touting three   
   candidates: Rocio Pizano, Hugo Rojas and Maritza Molina.   
      
   (By comparison, Pizano’s election committee raised $5,000,   
   according to the documents. Rojas and Molina apparently raised   
   no money.)   
      
   Pizano was an incumbent. But Rojas, a karate instructor and   
   former Hawthorne school board member with at least two DUIs on   
   his record — and Molina — then a 23-year-old recent college   
   graduate — ousted two incumbents with education credentials. One   
   of them, Rudy Salas, is the principal at Hawthorne Middle   
   School. The other, Frank Talavera, is an educator who at the   
   time was teaching at Gardena High School. Both opposed an effort   
   to put a bond measure on the ballot in 2008.   
      
   Sources say those two board members were controversial as well   
   and had a vindictive streak. Salas declined to be interviewed;   
   Talavera couldn’t be reached.   
      
   In his ballot statement that year, Talavera wrote that his   
   experience “will help me guide the district in a more positive   
   direction where students are the PRIORITY and not buildings or   
   superficial fix-ups.”   
      
   TELACU’s preferred candidates were triumphant. In December 2009   
   — a month after the election — the new school board unanimously   
   approved Fernandez’s generous employment contract. Not long   
   after, the board voted to put another $98 million bond measure   
   on the ballot. In November 2010, the voting public gave its   
   assent.   
      
   The initiative raised eyebrows on the Lawndale City Council.   
      
   “I think it’s outrageous they do this in low-income   
   communities,” Councilman Larry Rudolph said. “What are we   
   getting for it? I don’t see anything except for these big fancy   
   buildings. I don’t see how they are going to make the kids any   
   smarter.”   
      
   Rudolph added that in his own elections, he does not accept   
   campaign contributions. “I wouldn’t want to be in debt to   
   anybody,” he said. “I don’t have to do anything but vote my   
   conscience.”   
      
   Although it is common for big construction companies to make   
   financial contributions for the passage of bond measures, it is   
   rare for them to put up money for individual school board   
   candidates — at least in the South Bay.   
      
   “In our case, I doubt anybody got a dime,” said Jane Diehl, a   
   former longtime school board member in the Redondo Beach Unified   
   School District. Diehl was on the board when voters in the   
   district approved a $145 million construction bond measure in   
   2008. That project has been managed by the company Balfour   
   Beatty.   
      
   “Most of the school board elections in Redondo are pretty   
   sparse,” she added, saying candidates there generally raise   
   around $8,000. “If you want to win, you gotta walk” and knock on   
   doors.   
      
      
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