[img]1789|right|Karlo Silbiger||no_popup[/img]In a sock to the jaw election that will be remembered for years, debated for months, heavily favored incumbent Karlo Silbiger, Culver City’s designated rising political star since childhood, stunningly was removed from the School Board in yesterday’s election.
Nine dizzying hours after the final votes were declared at 11:20 last night, it remains too early, too murky to unravel the dominant factors behind the tallest upset in the community’s modern electoral history.
Least of all from the shocked young 30-year-old Mr. Silbiger.
Understandably, he immediately became scarce after the County Registrar of Voters posted the final count for the three available Board seats.
A hush swept over the crowded Jasmine Street living room of Mr. Culver City, Mike Cohen. Never did it lift.
The most obvious alleged cause of Mr. Silbiger’s downfall was his seminal vote last July 1 against the ballyhooed, but still ground-bound bond measure that is expected to go on next June’s ballot.
But in Mr. Silbiger’s camp, where persons declined to be quoted by name, that notion heavily was debunked.
In the coming days, the truth behind the yeah and nay surely will be revealed.
If Bond Measure Now boosters actually submarined Mr. Silbiger’s campaign, they ain’t going to quietly, modestly fade, unthanked, into the climate-juggling atmosphere.
At various parties around town, the utterly jubilant winners were:
1. Dr. Steve Levin, 2278 votes, 22.32 percent.
2. Kathy Paspalis, 2058 votes, 20.17 percent.
3. Sue Robins, 1877 votes, 18.39 percent.
Tuesday was their night. Their reasonably expected accomplishments will be properly celebrated.
[img]1993|left|Dr. Steve Levin||no_popup[/img]The astrophysicist, the attorney incumbent and the businesswoman – who well may become philosophical allies, along with returnee Laura Chardiet, on the five-member School Board the next four years – were not even breathing hard when the clinching votes were posted on every home computer and laptop from here to Norwalk.
They could have stepped off the race course, nailed 39 winks, and returned to still win by comfortable, undoubtable margins.
There were more fascinating, rewarding storylines from this election than there were voters.
The new School Board, in almost all ways that count, will not resemble the old one any more than your father’s shoes resemble your baby sister’s footwear.
The Teachers Union’s slate, which fell victim to numerous glaring gaffes in the closing days of the campaign, amazingly was wiped out.
[img]1805|right|Kathy Paspalis||no_popup[/img]The slate of the much-maligned United Parents of Culver City merely was undefeated, an achievement that will not be possible to improve upon.
Two of the three oncoming members of the reorganized School Board were first-time office-seekers.
They entered the race as longtime members of the community, certainly an advantage, but with moderate, not lofty, profiles.
Dr. Levin, an all-day, all-night, first-rank volunteer at the schools of his three children, and Ms. Robins, former Middle School science teacher-turned-entrepreneur, had hills to scale from July on.
They started slowly. As their confidence grew, their positivity ratings expanded exponentially.
By last week’s Ask2Know Kids Forum at West Los Angeles College, both of them were flying close to the sky.
The same trajectory was true of Ms. Paspalis, who also began her campaign sluggishly. She may have taken on more water than supporters in the early slog.
She, too, gained jet-level momentum as the campaign reached its mature stage.
[img]2177|left|Suzanne Robins||no_popup[/img]The tipoff that something tremendously favorable was happening to Ms. Paspalis came two days ago. It was reported here that one of the loudest voices to protest Mr. Silbiger’s iron-willed determination to delay the bond measure last July won the fundraising derby over Mr. Silbiger. It had been widely conceded that he would be the money-raising champ and the leading votegetter, that he was floating above the field.
At midnight, however, it appeared that the Widely Conceded may have been Widely Conceited.
Such seemingly amorphous assets count in a town where, normally, 4,000 of 26,000 voters bother to choose School Board members.
The final score was not in doubt from the moment the polls closed.
As is routinely the case in Culver City elections, when the absentee votes were posted minutes after the 8 o’clock poll closings, the opening order of the seven candidates scrambling for the three seats remain firmly intact, with a minor exception at the bottom.
The rest of the field:
4. Mr. Silbiger, 207 votes behind Ms. Robins, with 1670, 16.36 percent.
5. Claudia Vizcarra, 1218 votes, 11.94 percent.
6. Vernon Taylor, 568 votes, 5.57 percent.
7. Robert Zirgulis, 536 votes, 5.25 percent.
For now, though, the center ring belongs to Mr. Silbiger.
