By Gary Abrams
Re “Mr. Mielke, I Want to know Why ‘Our’ Candidates Placed 4th, 5th, 6th”
Dear Nota Sheep,
As a candidate, I walked for the School Board campaign four years ago.
Karlo Silbiger and Kathy Paspalis were also on the ticket. My speeches and letters were about the City Council not cooperating with or giving financial support to the School District, about teachers not having classroom support, overcrowding and discipline problems. It was about teachers being underpaid, teachers having to purchase their own basic supplies. It was about placing young kids on drugs.
I was a Volunteer of the Year 2009-10. But I had spent many years prior assisting in the classroom. Many parents thought that I was employed by the District.
I am not from California, so I do not play the feel-good game many like to engage in.
I am not the everything-is-just- groovy kind of guy.
I also touched on the deplorable physical conditions and maintenance of the schools and the school buses. One broke down on a field trip to the Gene Autry Museum with a group of second graders onboard.
I was the first candidate to have the Natatorium (defunct since the’90s) swimming pool open for inspection. I was an advocate for reopening the pool. I am just a for-real person. I don’t have a polished, canned speech telling you what you want to hear.
I was the only candidate against the super popular Measure EE parcel tax, mainly because it was underfunded. It was the latest trend in self-taxing, which could free up more money for the cities for Redevelopment Agency scams.
In other letters, I questioned a City Councilman during one meeting about the development on Irving Place that started out as a private sale of public property for $2.4 million to a private developer to finance other Redevelopment Agency projects. What began as a private party condo investment somehow became a Culver City $6 miillion taxpayer-financed investment apartment scam with $4.4 million forgiven for the opportunity for three low-income and nine moderate income city or School District employees getting first dibs for paying market rate rents. The present Mayor Cooper was roaring to get the measure passed with only two days public (legal) notice, given on a Friday for a meeting set for Monday.
I questioned the Council as to why they do not financially assist the schools. One Councilman replied that they were prohibited by law.
When the Redevelopment Agency was threatened with shutdown by the newly elected Gov. Brown because they were not sharing the money with the schools, the Agency hastily scrambled to make all kinds of new development deals to preempt the shutdown, more than $40million. Not one penny for the School District.
The Redevelopment Agency members and City Council were the same people. They just switched hats.
Wrote about that, too.
The premise that there is a law that would prohibit any city from financially assisting a school district is unbelievable. It is constantly repeated by Culver City politicians does not make it true. School Board members fall for it, though. Culver citizens like their politicians dumb and the politicians like their citizens dumber.
Three times in your letter you were ashamed and once you were disappointed.
Some times the truth does make one ashamed.
Educate the readers about what specifically made you ashamed.
Mr. Abrams may be contacted gabrams@ca.rr.com
