Tonight I attended an election/victory party at the home of Rancho Santa Margarita Councilman Tony Beall and his wife Jennifer where around 70 supporters gathered to await the returns of the Special Election to RECALL Trustee’s Marlene Draper and Shiela Benecke. As we watched the first three cycles it became apparent that this RECALL effort was a blowout with both incumbents losing by over 70 percent.
Realizing that the outcome was a forgone conclusion Tony took the mike to share the current results with the volunteers, some of whom have been engaged in this fight to restore responsible and fiscal management of this huge school district for many years.
Ellen Addonizio, Trustee Area 6, Anna Bryson Trustee Area 4 and Larry Christensen, Trustee Area 7 were all there to celebrate. They were all elected in the last election as Phase One of taking back our school District.
In attendance, along with Sue Palazzo who ran unopposed in Area 2, was Ken Maddox who we also declared the winner in his race for the Area 5 seat where he garnered 55 percent of the votes cast through the first 17 of 97 precincts. He was trailed by Gary V. Miller at 38.7 percent and Makam Subbarao with 6.3 percent.
There are 214,231 registered voters in this District of which the first results were almost 100 percent absentee with 20,595 ballots counted in these first cycles.
In addition to remarks by Tony and Jenifer Beall we also heard from Tom Russell, CUSD Recall spokesperson .
While Tony was addressing the crowd I did receive a call back from Art Pedroza and handed the phone to Ken Maddox so they could have a very brief exchange. One advantage of working with Art is that the Orange Juice represents a wide spectrum of positions and players that we can cover regardless of their politics or party affiliations.
Successful RECALL elections are rare occurrences. The most familiar one that comes to mind was in Fullerton many years ago related to a proposed utility tax. As such every one who took part in this fight will sleep well tonight.
As I close this post the latest results confirm that while the numbers may slightly change, this election is over!
Of the 28 voters who came in to a polling place in SJC it was 15 to 13 for recalling.
I checked the mapping system and the numbers votes counted and delivered matched what the ROV reports as being received.
A slow day with the first voter showing up in the mid morning.
Email reply
YAY!!!! We took our kids out of CUSD because of the clowns on the school board and Flemming and put them at CVCS many moons ago! So excited the fight is over!!!
Cook.
One of our neighbors had a voting location in their garage. When I visited around 11 a.m. they only had 8 or 9 voters show up in the first four hours.
While I did not check the latest data, my sense is that absentee voting probably set a record in this election.
Cook,
I believe the 1st voter of the day was 9 or 9:30.
Folks.
The CUSD RECALL Special Election had a 12 percent turn out of which 80% of the votes cast were by Absentee Ballot with 20% of the votes being cast at the local precinct.
In the contested race for Area 5 Ken Maddox led the entire evening with a final count of 56.3%, Gary V. Miller at 37.3% and Subbarao at 6.4%.
Great. Now, sweep up the confetti, get over the hangover, and get to work!
Yep LArry this was a “mail in election”, We had guessed at the begining how many would show, and the five of us guessed: 2, 10, 15, 50, 75, and we had 29 voters, I forgot about the man who did not do machines. My guess of 15 was close.
The grandma fron SJC knew half the voters who came in, and the grandma from Santa Ana knew the other half that came in. It was like a family reunion.
My highlight was hiking up the the SJC library 5 to 6 blocks away to gloat about our 18 voters, just to find out they had 22 voters by then.
THat is even after they had to get a potable generator to supply power to their site because of a blown transformer.
Hindsight is 20/20…bet many are now wishing they hadn’t voted for these clowns. Look what’s going on now. A real shame that things are even worse than before the 7 trustees were elected.
Please clarify. How are things “even worse”? And who is to blame?
You should listen to this, to find out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-CQFeYLXvc&feature=player_embedded#
and also try this link: http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=139893373550
Things are definitely worse. These trustees are NOT interested in putting children first; they are interested in apparently destroying a district.
If you want more, there is also the fact that these trustees, who should be proud of their district, participated in a documentary which names CUSD as a bad public school district, in spite of our high test scores and great schools.
Well, let’s see… Let’s list the broken promises…
– Restore fiscal accountability, transparency and sanity: fail. Instead, they’re litigating EVERYTHING, giving legal settlements to their friends, the Bealls, and others, and hiring consultants left and right.
– Manage the district in a non-contentious, rational way: fail. They’ve fired the superintendent, Woodrow Carter, on pretty much trumped up charges. They accused him of, among other things, negotiating with the teachers’ union behind their backs, when the Register found information clearly indicating that he had kept them informed of everything, from day one. There is a paper trail on it.
– Deal with the employees in a professional manner: fail. They want teachers to take a mandatory ten percent-plus pay cut WHEN THEY ALREADY HAVE A BALANCED BUDGET. Yes, you heard that right, they have a balanced budget. They have enough money to meet payroll, but are attacking teachers and other district employees. Morale is the lowest its ever been.
– Eliminate the old, rotting portable classrooms: fail. They’re still there, and there is no sign they will be replaced anytime soon.
More…
– They have refused to go through any trustee training. Seriously, just attend a Board Meeting, bring some liquor, and treat it as cheap entertainment. You’ll get angry at them, but you’ll also laugh at their public incompetence.
– Before taking votes, several, especially Winsten, can be seen checking their cell phones, probably to see how their puppet master, Neall, wants them to vote. again, check the youtube videos, as they are quite illuminating.
– They have failed to negotiate in good faith with the employees. They claimed a bargaining impasse after barely six hours of bargaining with the teachers. Yeah, like anyone really believes they were serious about bargaining.
– they have treated the administrators, both school and district level, so badly that many, many have left for greener pastures. The brain drain is palpable. The district was actually out of compliance with federal law for awhile because there was no special education coordinator for several months. The prior one left, getting out while the getting was good, and no one else wanted the job. Gee, I wonder why???
– Their interim superintendent, Roberta Mahler, is being paid about $975 per day. Yes, PER DAY. So much for being fiscal conservatives. Oh, and Mahler is the same woman who, at the last board meeting, talked about how nice it was to have small children rub her legs. Seriously, check the audio on it, she said that. She’s currently on a paid vacation. The board wants teachers and other employees to take pay cuts but they’re giving Mahler a paid vacation? Yeah, that makes sense.
There is so much more. If you really want to know the whole truth, attend the next board meeting. It promises to be a doozie.
meet the new boss, same as the old boss