George Laase

Ain’t our democracy great!

Here we are at the beginning of Culver City’s School Board election campaign, when any Bob, Dick or Gary who goes through the registration process, can become a full-fledged candidate for our local School Board.

The voters' smoldering anger and continued distrust of their elected officials in Sacramento received more vindication last week when state legislators passed, without any public comment or scrutiny, Assembly Bill 114. This very special-interest budget-trailer bill strips school districts of some of their bargaining leverage during annual negotiations in seeking concessions from teachers’ unions to help balance their school district budgets.

Students in the Culver City Unified School District are being penalized with fewer days of learning.

I remember a situation similar to the present Gourley-Mielke dispute a few years ago involving a public exchange between School Board member, Stew Bubar and Teacher Union President David Mielke.

Second of two parts

Re “Off With Their Heads”

First of two parts

Steve Gourley, the acrimonious two-term City Council member and ex-Mayor of our city, is now in his last year as a CCUSD Board member. As his term comes to an end, I can only guess that he still sees himself as the self-appointed leader of the Culver City Voter Inquisition, our local “J. Edgar Hoover” of polling.

We now have a School District task force on bullying. Well, the committee doesn’t have to look for a bad example of a bully. We have one sitting on our School Board, Steve Gourley.

In this era of seemingly ever-shrinking district budgets, it seems ridiculous for a union leader to keep harping publicly that the School District is “breaking the law” when it has to change and lessen its bargaining proposal.

The Photo Voltaic project now under discussion by the School Board is not about the use of "clean energy" for on-site usage or actually about converting sunlight into electricity.

There seem to be no real Americans left in Congress, these days. Just Democrats and Republicans, party-line followers. All I see are politicians willing to put their party’s agenda before the good of the country.