[img]1994|right|Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin||no_popup[/img]In the early autumn, when the month of October was saying hello and wise guys were speculating about who would join cinch returnee Karlo Silbiger on the reconstituted School Board, one other thread of political conversation was buzzing across Culver City:
Critics, and there was no shortage, griped that the inflated, undersized, overrated parents union, United Parents of Culver City, was threatening to prematurely outgrow its britches before having proven itself worthy of being a political player. Long on talk, short on results, sneered critics.
Oh, yeah?
While criticisms of the UPCC were volleying forth and back across the education community, the wiser minds of the parents union confidently leaned back, stroked their chins and listened.
UPCC leadership knew, president Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlen said last night at Sebastian Ridley-Thomas’s Victory Party, that they had endorsed three winning candidates in the three-seat School Board race.
This was the first account, the initial explanation of what forces propelled Dr. Steve Levin, Kathy Paspalis and Sue Robins into the tri-winners circle.
Ms. Wisnosky Stehlin stopped inches short of saying she and her fellow leaders knew, drop-dead knew, their endorsees would cross the finish line first. But close.
She and her UPCC cohorts were less surprised by their three-punch knockout than they would have been by a 6 a.m. sunrise.
“I was confident going into the election that all three of them would win,” Ms. Wisnosky Stehlin said.
“All of them were strong candidates. At the school level, where it really matters, they had the parents support.”
The UPCC-imprinted candidates fully expected to finish 1-2-3, she said. “They knew they were running extremely effective campaigns. I knew the people who were helping them, and they were honest. I think all three of them were confident they had a lot of support.”
Maintaining Civil Tongues
Ms. Wisnosky Stehlin praised the ethical conduct of the Levin-Paspalis-Robins campaigns. They have not chortled over their success, just accepted it relatively quietly. “They don’t dance on other peoples’ defeats,” she said. “These are people who were in it because they meant it.”
In the end, she said, the UPCC’s candidates won “because we had truth and facts on our side.”
That was a mouthful statement, a euphemistic way of saying that the 18-month-old UPCC, supposedly in its infancy, stunningly had already fulfilled its ambitious mission of not only involving more parents than ever before but convincing them to follow through and vote for the candidates deemed most helpful to their children.
Ms. Wisnosky Stehlin began to philosophize. “Culver City is a small community full of people with big ideas,” she said, “full of people who are passionate, people who are intelligent. They know what the issues are. They know what the truth is. That is what happened on Election Day. The voters who came out looked at the issues and looked at what the candidates stood for. On that basis, they believed these three people were the best choices for the School Board.”
While leaving rivals dazed and in tatters, what was left for the precocious UPCC to accomplish, except to repeat every election cycle?
A behemoth, it is not. Just, it seems, right-minded parents quietly (a key asset) pursuing rudimentary goals of matching the candidates with the school community’s pressing needs.
Contrary to some post-election assessments, the UPCC did not run a “slate,” Ms. Wisnosky Stehlin said firmly.
They were three separate entities.
“You win by picking good people to endorse,” the president said.
To the shock of many outside of the UPCC perimeter, their choices, Dr. Levin, returnee Ms. Paspalis and Ms. Robins not only swept the boards, they left themselves breathing room to spare on Election Night.
No squeakers here.
