Third in a series
Re “Mr. Corlin Judges What Is Wrong with the School Board”
[img]1988|right|Alan Corlin||no_popup[/img]Symmetrically, the articulate voice and the arching eyebrows of former Mayor Alan Corlin rose in unison as he continued to scold the School Board for the way he believes it clumsily mishandled the surprise decision to end a proposed bond measure campaign in mid-stream.
“What are we going to do the next time they want a bond and the next time they want to spend $28,000?” he asked.
“We have to have a guarantee from the Board they actually will follow through on something.”
“We have people on the School Board who, last January, voted to spend $28,000 to hire consultants for a bond. For six months, they did nothing.
“They came back on July 1 and said, ‘We don’t have enough information.’
“If you don’t have enough information,” Mr. Corlin said, “you should not have voted to spend the 28 thousand bucks.”
Motivation Was Laudatory
He conceded that the School Board’s motivation was “well-founded. Their motivation was, if you look at some of the buildings, it is my personal point of view that if some of the school buildings and some of the facilities belong to the city, we would be red tagging them.
“If you look at some of the bathrooms, some of the facilities and see what is going on, we would not want city people working in such places.
“But we have kids in school using those facilities.
“Now this,” said Mr. Corlin, “is from a guy who does not have any children, and won’t have any children in the schools.
“The only thing I have for the schools is, I would like, in my old age, to have people who are well educated to make my retirement, whenever that happens, a little more comfortable.”
Why is Mr. Corlin suddenly commenting on the School Board race for three available seats that ends on Nov. 5?
The Connection
As noted earlier in this series, he is practically a lifetime family friend of the Levins, Sandi, a former mayor, Alan, his partner in business, and Dr. Steve, one of seven contenders for the Board –the largest field anyone can remember.
“Here is the real problem with the bond,” said Mr. Corlin.
“In the short term, it is a good idea. But it needs to be thought of in the correct manner. The number I keep hearing is that we need $165 million in repairs.
“Let us take a step back. This is what I think the School Board should be telling us. The $165 million came from a company that wants to do all the work.
“Naturally they said every little thing needs to be done. It is up to the School Board to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Everything here on the list is bona fide. However, these are the priorities.’
“That is what the Board should have been doing for the last six months, rather than coming to us now and saying, ‘Nope, three out of the five voted not to have the bond.’
“I have no clue why they were not doing that,” Mr. Corlin said. “Maybe they had other things going on in their lives. No idea.
“I don’t follow it that closely. Unfortunately for me, in my part of town, I may get the video when they meet in City Hall. But I don’t get the audio. Same thing with the City Council.
Sparks Become Airborne
“That may be a benefit sometimes,” said the funloving politician with a twinkle in one eye.
“My thinking is, if we have people who are going to take a job on the School Board, they have to have something better to do. This is not the highlight of the job.
“For me, personally, I have looked at the Board the last couple of years, and it has been proven to me being a teacher is no benefit. I don’t think there is a correlation between teaching and being on the Board.
“Also, we are Culver City,” said Mr. Corlin, “and I don’t like the idea that somebody who might be working for a School Board member in L.A. , might have to say something in front of him that this Board member doesn’t want to hear, and the person’s job might be in jeopardy. Who is the person going to represent, the Board member or us?
“From what I know of L.A. schools, I cannot believe anybody who works in an L.A. school would take any of those ideas and bring them here to Culver City. Why would you do that?”
