Rejecting Corporate Candidates

“Authenticity can’t be faked. It is the antithesis of fake. Los Angelenos crave genuine. Especially after the audio tape that was released two weeks ago.”
- Tracy Cook

The 2022 election season has been disheartening in Los Angeles. It started with LAUSD School Board Candidate Maria Brenes’ husband, Luis Sanchez, leading the commission that drew the boundaries for the district she would run in. Brenes herself served on the commission that redistricted the city council seats and whose work is now being investigated by State Attorney General Bonta after The Recording was released. In LAUSD District 6, incumbent Kelly Gonez has become so adept at serving special interests that she managed to get the financial support of the charter school industry while also obtaining the endorsement of UTLA. In City Council District 15, the establishment candidate, Tim McOsker lost an endorsement after reports of “bullying and intimidation” against his opponent’s supporters in the allegation that “one local restaurant was threatened that its Sandoval signs would be burned down if not removed.”

But there have also been milestones in this election that offer signs of hope. In Board District 6, LAUSD parent and teacher Marvin Rodriguez defied the odds in the primary and forced Gonez into a runoff. Eunisses Hernandez beat Gil Cedillo outright even before the councilman’s participation in the bigoted conversation caught on The Recording was revealed. Kenneth Mejia rose above establishment candidates to come in first in the race to become the next Los Angeles City Controller.

In LAUSD Board District 2, Rocio Rivas rode a wave of grassroots support to come in first in the June primary. Public School Parent Tracy Cook attended a fundraiser for the candidate last weekend and writes about her experience as part of the Voices From The Community series:

Last Sunday I attended a fundraiser for Rocio Rivas. At the event were parents, teachers, a 5-year-old kindergartner with his grandma and his 98-year-old great-grandma. All are passionate about public education. It was a small group of us in a lovely backyard in Montecito Heights.

At one point, one of the guests presented Rocio with a gift from a teacher. The teacher painted his school, Esperanza Elementary with children playing in the yard and the sun lowering in the fall sky. It is beautiful. Rocio was moved to tears. Tenderness was in that backyard.

Authenticity can't be faked. It is the antithesis of fake. Los Angelenos crave genuine. Especially after the audio tape that was released two weeks ago.

Jackie Goldberg was there and spoke of Rocio's research skills and how important they are needed in this board and the work Rocio has been doing in BD5 supporting all the schools that Monica neglected for ten (plus) years that are now in BD5.

In the meantime, her opponent Maria Brenes is bankrolled by $8 million from billionaires like Reed Hastings. That $8 million is funding independent expenditures (IEs) that are carpet-bombing BD2 with mailers full of lies.

Brenes sought the endorsements of Kevin de Leon (KDL) and Nury Martinez, along with a donation from KDL. When the audio tape was released, she scrubbed the endorsements from her website.

Brenes’ husband was the chair of the LAUSD new map redistricting. He picked the boundaries that best served his wife's future campaign. The group Maria manages, Inner City Struggle (ICS) called into redistricting meetings to lobby for that map.

History will not be kind to these actions. More can be read in the article Billionaires Are Shoveling Money Into a Los Angeles School Board Race.

BD2 deserves someone real and authentic. Someone who knows how to show up and do real work. A leader who inspires a teacher to paint a beautiful school, a 98-year-old grandma to show up on a late afternoon and write a modest check. This is real.

All of us need to do everything we can to help Rocio win this race.
Look at the map of BD2. Who do you know lives in BD2? Please reach out to them and tell them to vote for Rocio Rivas. You can forward them this article. Tell them Rocio is the ONLY candidate supported by teachers. The other candidate is bankrolled by billionaires.

Thank you,
Tracy Cook
Public School Parent

To find your LAUSD Board District visit: https://lavote.gov/apps/precinctsmaps.

Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for students with special education needs and public education. He was elected to the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and is the Education Chair. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.