On what could have been a showcase evening before the largest pre-election crowd the School Board contenders are likely to see, last night’s normally glossy League of Women Voters forum sputtered, staggered and finally, mercifully fizzled, in Council Chambers filled to overflow.
Veteran League moderator Thea Brodkin flunked her uncomplicated assignment from the start. Her ad-libbing was amateurish. Professionalism took a holiday, articulation was invisible. Ill-prepared, she repeatedly mangled names. Instead of posing questions with a semblance of clarity, she butchered sentences and shrugged when asked for an explanation.
From left to right, Robert Zirgulis, Gary Abrams, Scott Zeidman, Laura Chardiet and Nancy Goldberg were seated on the dais in Chambers where, after Nov. 8, two of them will claim chairs for the next four years.
The setting was classier than any yet visited, if only the circus aspects could have been subtracted.
The five contenders for two Board seats in the Nov. 8 election almost were reduced to second bananas by the moderator’s string of gaffes and her uneven questioning.
The League of Women Voters often stages the most sophisticated candidate forums, often attracting the most demanding questions of the election season. Last night’s program had a chance, until it started and a number of silly questions were lumped in with serious inquiries. The moderator may have been unable to distinguish.
Where Board President Scott Zeidman and PTA Council leader/LAUSD administrator Laura Chardiet had been the strongest twin performers in all previous forums, Mr. Zeidman delivered again but Ms. Chardiet may have taken a step back.
Unhesitatingly and without interruption, Mr. Zeidman knows the script far better than his rivals.
Anxious to respond before the question is fully posed, he fires back cogent, informative, enlightening replies faster than the inquiries were fed to him.
He, alone, did not require a written account to verify his life, his career, his convictions.
For the first time, Ms. Chardiet did, even though the material is exactly what she has been telling voters for months. She looked uncomfortable before the program.
When the lights came on, though, she was rhetorically her old self without the unique vigor that has come to be associated with her.
When the questioning began, and the candidates were selected in random order (random order?), her answers, typically, were thoughtful and comprised of granite.
Nancy Goldberg, the retired teacher, continues to be the most closely observed, the most passionately followed of the candidates because of her 41 years in Culver City classrooms.
A better candidate than when she started back in July but still well north of the finished product line, it remains unprovable whether she has gained a sufficiently comprehensive grasp on the most acute issues confronting the School Board.
At times Ms. Goldberg sounded like the reincarnation of former City Councilman Gary Silbiger. He was the dedicated populist known for regularly consulting community gatherings for their opinions before voting.
Instead of taking on stand on questions, Ms. Goldberg favored solicitation of group views from the community.
Candidates faced their first challenge when asked how the capital improvement funds should be spent, and “how would you involve the community in the decision-making process?”
Noting that $12 million is on hand, Mr. Zeidman said the two most important needs are balancing priorities (among the various school-community interests) and finding a way to raise money. As the candidate known for recruiting students to his campaign, Mr. Zeidman said that “we need to augment our students’ education and participation. One way to do that is to repair our very poor athletic facilities.”
Mr. Abrams, bracketed with Mr. Zirgulis as a second tier candidate, launched several of the evening’s best zingers. Armed with broad, provocative, sometimes amorphous, data, he said tracking School District financial activities can be indecipherable, comparing the accounting system to Morse Code.
Mr. Abrams authored the No. 1 line of the program, even if it was his adopted child — “Politicians are like kids in diapers. They need to be changed often, and for the same reason.”
An expert at formulating sound, digested answers while standing on one foot, Ms. Chardiet demonstrated that she can be diplomatic and pragmatic simultaneously: “All (four) of the proposals have their merit. I would prioritize it by student health-safety first, educational value and then cost benefits.”
Having volunteered and led all over the school community, she is familiar with the mechanisms, the personalities and philosophies.
Under the same heading, Ms. Chardiet added that “it was a shame that CBAC, the Community Budget Advisory Committee (of which she was a member), was disbanded. Having it in place would have helped getting more stakeholders involved in the decision-making.”
She also suggested town hall meetings so that “all the people touched by these improvements can have input.”
For sheer truncation and practicality, that may have been the answer of the night.
“These projects must all be done at some point,” Ms. Goldberg said. “The ones that have to be state-authorized must come into play first. But I think the Robert Frost (Auditorium), if it were properly attended by the community, a committee, somebody from each school, then these committees could help decide what improvements should be made.”
Warming up
The Raintree homeowner complex will host the next candidates forum on Thursday evening at 7.
