By Debbie Hamme
Re: “She Says Her Critic Is Munching on Sour Grapes”
Two days ago, Crystal Alexander wrote: “Sour grapes – www.merriam-webster.com – noun plural: Unfair criticism that comes from someone who is disappointed about not getting something.
“All the criticism of the School Board candidate union endorsements and that endorsement process has not come from Kathy Paspalis personally. Nor, to my knowledge, have they been prompted by her. Instead, they have come from folks who are concerned by what happened and how it happened.”
Ms. Alexander, with your quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, are you clarifying for the community how Ms. Paspalis felt after not getting the union endorsements? It appears that way.
You see, despite your disclaimer, I know what her comments were after she received the phone call from the chair of the Teachers Union PAC advising her that she had not gotten our endorsements.
While you may feel that the criticism of the endorsement process has not originated with Ms. Paspalis, I would think that you (as a member of her campaign committee) and a couple of her listed supporters are continually commenting on this issue is proof enough. I doubt she has no knowledge of your letter-writing campaign. She has said nothing publicly to put an end to it.
Yet I wonder why Ms. Paspalis didn't question our endorsement process four years ago when I also served on the interview panel for the Assn. of Classified Employees, and I helped craft the questions. Could it be because she received our endorsement then?
Let's be honest. She sought my union’s endorsement because she felt it would benefit her campaign – and it did. Four years ago, I worked on Ms. Paspalis’s first campaign, walked my precinct, talked to voters, passed out literature, wrote letters to the editors of local papers and garnered a $1,000 contribution to her campaign from the California Teachers Assn., which she accepted.
She sought the endorsements of the unions a second time because she realizes that there are voters in this community who still value unions and what they stand for. She realizes that our endorsements help her to not only get votes, but get other, more important, endorsements.
Obviously, she didn't have a problem with our endorsement process four years ago when she got it. Now, all of a sudden, the process is under scrutiny because she didn't?
Ms. Alexander, I have no problem whatsoever with your posting the questions that we asked. Those questions were approved by my executive board and interview panel. We have the right to ask questions that are pertinent to us.
Ms. Paspalis may not have liked the questions, but I would have to wonder why she was surprised or offended by them. Are we not allowed to ask tough questions? Are we only allowed to ask questions about certain subjects?
The adjunct issue intimately involved the Assn. of Classified Employees. We felt it was important to ask the candidates these questions to hear their understanding of the issue. I am, quite honestly, at a loss to understand why any of the candidates would have been surprised that those questions were asked. Even the candidates who were not incumbents had a position on the issue. So please explain how it is that our School Board president was upset that she was asked questions about an issue that was divisive in our community and that she was directly involved with?
Ms. Paspalis has been on the Board for four years and is now the president. She should have been able to answer those questions without hesitation. Yet she could not. The reason she couldn’t is because it was clear in the interviews that she had only considered a single perspective on the issue.
She had not done her due diligence as a Board member by even contacting me once during the months that this issue continued. Don’t you think that it was her responsibility at that time to, at the very least, reach out to ask me for clarification of the “union” position? Whether she ultimately agreed with it or not, it was her responsibility to understand it.
Is it not the job of a Board member to represent all of their constituents equally and without bias?
Ms. Hamme, President of the Assn. of Classified Employees – Culver City, may be contacted at antiquer01@aol.com
