Even before the School Board race began in the late summer, Mike Eskridge had carved his own niche that would permanently distinguish him from his four rivals, regardless of what was said during the campaign.
He was Old Folks.
Mr. Eskridge is Mr. Comfortable, Mr. Hometown Boy, your favorite pair of shoes that you cannot part with no matter how much your spouse pleads.
Unshakable?
With two successful and two unsuccessful runs for the School Board in his portfolio, he is knowledgeable, comfortable and by every sign, incapable of being rattled.
Deliberate, unhurried and confident, he has packed a ream of appropriate answers into his saddle bags. He is running the kind of race his supporters knew he would when he took out papers in July.
Some candidates hunched forward to deliver their answers during the community forums last month. Some stood.
Mr. Eskridge, unlike any of the others, may as well have had a rocking chair beneath him.
Dipping into the fount of insights he gained during his eight years on the School Board, he provides answers to questions as easily as if he were entertaining visitors on his front porch on an autumn evening.
The environment is as if he were chatting with an intimate circle of old friends.
Mr. Eskridge has reminded forum audiences a number of times they are welcome to drop in at his Culver Center Flower Shop — where he is the third generation owner — and discuss school business. These chats have been a neighborhood habit for years.
The other morning, though, for a few minutes, Mr. Eskridge was talking about the premium seasons of the year — from a florist’s perspective.
Ranking the Holidays
“Christmas is your best season,” he said. “Valentine’s is your biggest single day, but you probably make the least amount of money on it. By the time wholesalers triple their prices to you, you can’t triple the price to your customers because they would go ballistic. You just make less money on that holiday, even though it is more work. And then there is Mother’s Day.
“Easter is not a big time anymore. People don’t celebrate it like they used to do. They celebrate, but it’s not a big family and flowers thing. It used to be huge. On Easter, people don’t really go to church like they used to. Thanksgiving is not what it used to be, either.
Holidays Aren’t The Same
“The business has changed. It’s different. For me, it’s still deliveries, sending flowers to hospitals, to funerals. But they don’t line up the way they used to for their centerpieces for Thanksgiving.”
Starting with tomorrow’s School Board election, Mr. Eskridge would like to take a little time away from his business to devote to shaping School District policy.
In a field where the five contenders for the seats that Stew Bubar and Marla Wolkowitz are surrendering are rated even, his experience could give him an edge with voters.
Perceived Edges
“I have a history of working with budgets, and I know things from having been on the Board,” Mr. Eskridge said. “I know about keeping cuts as far away from the children as possible. If I win the seat, I bring a whole history with me.”
When he ran the first time 15 years ago, both of his sons were in school. Does he take a different perspective now that both boys are long graduated?
“Whether I had children in school was not a factor when I took my seat,” Mr. Eskridge said. “I ran the first time because the Natatorium had been closed. Before I was elected, I had two children. Afterward, I had 6,000 children I was responsible for.”
The Eskridge Years
He won four-year terms in 1992 and ’96 , and he lost runs for the Board in 2000 and in ’02.
More than merely nostalgic for his old policymaking seat, Mr. Eskridge is making his probably unprecedented fifth run to correct what he perceives as slippage since leaving Irving Place seven years ago.
One of his favorite talking points the past 2 1/2 months has been the dilemma over figuring out how to fund $11 million in retiree healthcare benefits in the next five years, as ordered by Sacramento.
Once There Was Money
“When I left the Board, about $3.5 million was in the reserve fund for retiree health benefits,” Mr. Eskridge said. “I talked about this at every candidates’ forum. But nobody (else) was talking about the $11 million the District has to come up with.
“If the District had stayed on plan, the health benefits would have been prefunded, and we wouldn’t have had to worry about it now. But the money was given away. It no longer is there.
“Right now they are paying it out of the general budget each year. What is mandated by law is, if you offer retiree health benefits, you have to prefund it in case you ever go bankrupt. And chool districts have been known to go bankrupt.”
Delving for Answers
Mr. Eskridge’s solution?
“Hopefully, the state will give us a little more time beyond the five years they have set,” he said. “If they don’t, it will mean major cuts. The District also may look at not giving retiree health benefits. You don’t ever want to do that,” said a man whose three other family members are employed by the School District.
“The one thing that our employees have that really makes it worthwhile to teach in the District has been their health benefits. They don’t have great salaries. Probably, teaching never will have great salaries.
Slender Options
“If your budget is $44 million, and 94.5 percent already goes to salaries and benefits, there is not a whole lot of money left over from that little pie to fund with.
“Plus, the money from the Redevelopment Agency (about $1,5 million a year) will soon go away. So I don’t know what they are going to do.”
