I’m Free to Be Me !!! — So let’s get on with it. Today’s agenda includes good things about George McKenna and bad things about Alex Johnson and his liege lord, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas; good things about Najee Ali and his protest against Skyy Fisher and bad things about the Two Urban Girls’ attack on Najee for his protest against the Skyy; and anything else that may come to mind before I go to bed. Oh, and that West Basin Water District director guy, Ronald Smith, who was charged with embezzlement last week. From what I hear, he may not be the only public official to be so charged. Stay tuned.
It was a great day last Tuesday when a gang of present and retired members of the Los Angeles City Council and the LAUSD School Board gathered on the City Hall’s South Lawn to repudiate the smear tactics of School Board candidate Johnson and endorse the election of education icon McKenna for the District 1 seat. Expressing their support for McKenna’s election were Council members Gil Cedillo, Paul Koretz, Tom LaBonge and Bernard Parks, and retired Council members David Cunningham, Robert Farrell and Nate Holden.
LAUSD Board members who thoroughly dissed Johnson’s campaign and welcomed the prospect of working with McKenna, were Steven Zimmer, Bennett Kayser and Monica Ratliff. They were joined at the podium in endorsing McKenna by retired and highly respected Board members Barbara Boudreau, Warren Furutani, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Julie Korenstein, David Tokofsky and retired Assembly and School Board member Jackie Goldberg.
Last Friday night, everybody who is somebody who has an ounce of interest in seeing to it that McKenna, “one of the most esteemed public educators in recent L.A. history” — as described by LAUSD’s Zimmer— wins Tuesday’s runoff election, attended a reception at the Consolidated Realty Board, 3725 Don Felipe Dr. in support of McKenna. The event featured a long list of special guests headed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Karen Bass and me. Although I’m not a special guest — I was just there eating hors d’oeuvres, drinking lemonade and talking bad about Johnson; saying things like “You know, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is backing Johnson! Remember him? Remember how we didn’t like Villaraigosa and why?” I also said things like: “Did you know that the PAC affiliated with the California Charter School Assn. has spent almost $80,000 to get Johnson elected?” Why? you could have asked. Then I could have said: “So he can divert more public school funds into the creation of more charter schools so the California Charter School Assn. operators can get richer and fatter and the dwindling public schools — the ones educating the disadvantaged children — will get poorer and skinnier.”
I also could have commented about how Johnson keeps talking about everything in his nasty campaign mailers except education. I might mention the irony of his painting himself to be the world’s only “protector of children” and how he “puts student safety first,” yet the Los Angeles School Police Assn. is unimpressed by his one-note samba because it endorsed McKenna!
One final thing. Have you noticed that puny list of endorsements Johnson has? Diane Watson, Herb Wesson and two or three other politicians and a handful of preachers! Really? Look at Johnson’s pitiful list and compare it to McKenna’s at www.electmckenna.com/endorsements.
Item 2 — The 2 Urban Girls bloggers took Najee Ali to task for leading a protest in front of the house of arrested Compton School Board member Skyy Fisher last week. They seem to think he and the others were out of line protesting in front of the man’s house. Where have they been? Protesting in front of a public official’s house is a standard venue at which the people have expressed their displeasure ever since the glory days of the 1960s! Where were you 2 Urban Girls a few months ago when the SEIU protested the layoffs of Inglewood city employees in front of Inglewood Mayor James Butts’s house? Public officials’ houses, churches, gyms, places of business are not off-limits when the people want to make a point as long the people stay on public territory when they do it. Protesting public officials where they live is an effective way of dealing with the peoples’ concerns, and I suspect it may regain its popularity soon. Get with it, Girls. Are you not bothered that Fisher was arrested and charged with sexual assault on a sleeping or unconscious man? Okay.
But this one is: Prophet Walker, the really cute candidate for the 64th Assembly District, joined the chorus of like-minded Comptonites and called on Fisher to resign his School Board seat. “Mr. Fisher’s alleged actions are deeply troubling, especially for someone responsible for the education and wellbeing of young people,” the gorgeous Walker said. “Anyone involved in public service simply must put the interests of young people ahead of their own political self-interest.”
The tall Walker applauded Compton Mayor Aja Brown and School Board President Micah Ali for taking a decisive stand and calling for Fisher’s resignation. He said he asked Carson City Councilman Mike Gipson, his opponent for the 64th Assembly seat, to join those calling for Fisher’s resignation and to renounce the endorsement Gipson received from Fisher.
“Councilman Gipson has quietly removed Fisher’s name from his list of endorsers, but he clearly doesn’t want to take a public stand,” Walker said.
“With the new school year about to start, we must focus on the needs of young people. We need leaders to focus on improving schools, not on the indiscretions of elected officials,” the really fine Walker said. (And he’s smart, too. I must interview him.)
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