Two subjects, neither pleasant, are on my mind this morning:
If you have glanced at the almost overwhelming campaign to pass the $96 a year Parcel Tax on Nov. 3, some hellbent, overzealous supporters appear to have slipped out of control.
In their high-volume, one-way-only attempt to absolutely, positively pass the Parcel Tax, they have painted a moustache on the otherwise very pretty face of School District Supt. Myrna Rivera Cote.
Forgoing subtlety and fundamental manners, these zealots have taken a sledgehammer into each hand and repeatedly pounded the ground with a single intemperate mantra that you would think was a religion’s 9th or 10th Commandment.
As if smelly leaders of the Taliban occupy the principal chairs in the School District offices in Irving Place, the well-intentioned but off-key zealots bellow at every stop:
“None of the $1.2 million we expect to collect each of the next 5 years, if Measure EE passes, will go to administrators’ salaries.”
Each time I hear those words, I think the speaker is trying to gargle broken glass.
Even though they wear pith helmets and strap on loaded machine guns before they steer their armored tanks into Irving Place 5 mornings a week, administrators, the leaders and consciences of the School District, are not the enemy of the District or the everloving Parcel Tax.
Or at least they weren’t before the intemperate rhetorical rock-throwing at them began a few weeks ago.
I have no obvious objection to the proviso of excluding administrative salaries from the booty to be collected, if Measure EE passes.
However, administrators are not the enemy. You might not guess that, though, from the way misguided supporters are gleefully spitting out this provision.
If Culver City schools are as strong as Measure EE supporters tell us, I suspect District leadership is at least a secondary or tertiary reason.
We carried a story a couple days ago saying that Dr. Cote and some of her peers joined last Saturday’s march across the community to inform the uninformed about Measure EE.
I wonder how Dr. Cote felt hearing some of the choir joyfully chirp to unsuspecting residents that “By thunder, those dirty administrators in the District office are not going to see a penny of the Parcel Tax revenue, if it passes.”
I am confident no one from Irving Place will have to don tattered clothes and position himself at the foot of a freeway off-ramp, begging for funds for his next two meals.
Nevertheless, it is time class was restored to the campaign.
Here Comes That Man Again
With almost 5 weeks remaining until the Nov. 3 election, School Board candidate Gary Abrams’ tiresome I Am an Amateur act is grating on the nerves of the normally unflappable.
But my criticism of Mr. Abrams’ remarkably imperfect campaign lies elsewhere.
Summoning a measure of nastiness that is rare for any decent community, Mr. Abrams twice has inserted — insinuated — seeming racial slurs into his prolific commentaries.
In each case, instead of drawing on an incident, he made them up.
By evidently attempting to ignite a racial firestorm from the depths of his disappointing imagination, Mr. Abrams calls into question his already shaky judgment — the very spine of the Board membership he seeks.
Mr. Abrams should make an apology as publicly as he created the slur.
If he offers an apology, I shall be grateful. If he does not, I shall not be surprised.
