4 and 2
Second-time challenger Roger Maxwell, who boasts he is undefeated with voters, Alan Elmont, a regular for years at School Board meetings, former City Councilman Steve Gourley and Mr. Zeidman.
Fifth-time candidate Michael Eskridge told the newspaper this morning that he will complete the filing process before Wednesday afternoons deadline. Newcomer Barbara Kline was not available to comment.
Depends on the day of the week, says Mr. Zeidman of dividing his professional life between practicing law and practicing commerce.
Gambling He Will Win
What may fastest capture the imagination of voters is L.A. Slots, characterized in its advertising as the worlds largest distributor of gaming equipment. It manufactures, refurbishes and distributes gaming machines. We feature a full line of Las Vegas casino-style slot machines, according to the companys marketing.
In their student days, 27 years ago, Mr. Zeidman and his brother Larry launched L.A. Slots in the garage of their parents, the late Charles and Anne Zeidman.
We do everything, Mr. Zeidman said this morning. L.A. Slots provides the vast majority of gaming props to motion picture studios. Make that 100 percent, he quickly added, for the Friday night hit NBC series Vegas, which is shot at The Culver Studios.
Culver and the World Transformed
Culver City and the world both are very different from the days a quarter-century ago when he was in school, the candidate said. Enrollment was much smaller then, he said. We could walk at night. And we had an open campus.
Mr. Zeidman was not the first contender to declare that part of his platform will cover advocating financial and benefits gains for the teachers and the staff. I want them to get what they desereve.
While he is not looking forward to day-to-day campaigning between now and Nov. 6, Mr. Zeidman said he is eager to explore and attempt to improve the reasons there is a perceived absence of clear, effective communication lines between the School Board and the community. It is not any better than when I was in school, he said.
Voice Sounds Crinkled
The School Board is supposed to be the voice of the people. If we dont know what is going on, if the Board doesnt tell us what is going on, then it isnt acting as the voice of the people.
He is ambitious to effect change, he said.
But he realizes that he would need to co-opt allies to achieve any objectives since he would only represent 20 percent of the School Board. Wary of potential infringements of the states Brown Act that governs elected officials and public meetings, Mr. Zeidman suggested that one Board member could meet weekly with school parents and community members at a campus in the School District.
Surveying the Hot Issues
The father of one son in the early grades at El Marino Language School and a second who is two years from enrollment, Mr. Zeidman is on familiar footing with the talking-points issues of the not-quite-airborne campaign.
Having just finished reading the latest legal thriller by Steve Martini , he is now poised to leap into a hometown thriller, Culver City-style, the race with five other hungry candidates.
Learning About Kindergarten
Mr. Zeidman said the brief, bombastic dispute two months ago over whether to pare kindergarten classes across the District especially but not only at El Marino was the tipping point on deciding to enter the race.
Content aside for a moment, he was critical of the style of the School Board in confronting the subject. I brought my 8-year-old to the meeting at Lin Howe to show him how the process works, Mr. Zeidman said. But we had to leave. It got too late.
The School Board did not get around to the subject until 11 oclock. Two hundred people were there that night. At least 195 for the kindergarten issue. Everybody knew that. Why did the Board wait until 11 oclock?
About Ladera Heights
Over the still unsettled question of the mass transfer of hundreds of Ladera Heights students into the School District, Mr. Zeidman said he was philosophically opposed to the transfer.
He reasoned that it would be better for the health of the District to continue to accept, say, a couple of hundred permit students from, say, a couple of hundred neighborhoods rather than to be beholden to one single neighborhood for many years.
