For Culver City’s public school system, the news on the morning after what was an ostensibly disastrous election result was cold, stark and most importantly of all, uncertain.
“The situation is too liquid to tell,” said School Board member Scott Zeidman, who has trained one eye on the election ever since tax-raising propositions were announced.
He said that if he is asked to approve further cuts at next Tuesday night’s School Board meeting, he will respond negatively “because I don’t want to make cuts in (an information) vacuum.”
The sweeping rejection of the touted but vaguely explained ballot propositions that were intended to raise replacement taxes may mean that this spring’s announced teacher layoffs stand.
Or not.
The lopsided results of the five propositions pushed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and most legislators provided fresh evidence of a startling claim:
Mr. Schwarzenegger and the legislators are among the most unpopular officeholders in the country.
The striking similarity in the brutal rejection of each ballot measure suggests that opponents did not merely disagree with the propositions. Aroused voters were mad enough to rifle unforgettably harsh messages from their hometowns to Sacramento.
Here are yesterday’s complete results:
Prop. 1A lost 66 to 34 percent.
Prop. 1B lost 63 to 37 percent.
Prop. 1C lost 65 to 35 percent.
Prop. 1D lost 66 to 34 percent.
Prop. 1E lost 66 to 34 percent.
No one in California knows whether the stunning loss of replacement taxes —intended to plug up part of the astounding state budget deficit — will cause a financial earthquake or blip.
Whether — or how hard — the School District will get hit fiscally between now and the end of the school term remains a dead-on mystery.
The fate of laid-off teachers and other District employees who were informed earlier they may not be brought back next year still is dangling.
No resolution is in view.
