Filiberto Gonzalez, Tamar Galatzan and the Minimum Wage
Filiberto Gonzalez is a long time fixture in the tech community here in Los Angeles. When his first child started school in LAUSD I patiently waited for his head to explode and to hear that he was the PTA president or some sort of liason or whatever it is they do now at LAUSD. It didn’t take long and predictably Filiberto, serial dogooder, is running for school board.
You should vote for Filiberto Gonzalez. He’s an ethical man, he’s a hard worker and he has three main priorities as a school board member:
1. Break LAUSD into smaller, manageable-sized school districts.
2. Increase teacher pay to reflect their responsibility to our student and society, while cutting bureaucratic overhead that has no impact on classroom instruction by 10%.
3. Lead in creating the nation’s #1 child protection and transparency plan to assure parents out children are safe in the care of LAUSD.
I’ve met with Filiberto and he’s outlined his plan. It’s based in sound business and community practices. I’d invite you to interact with Filiberto on twitter at @GoFiliberto or on his Facebook page.
Filiberto also did an in depth questionnaire with the United Way.
There are a number of candidates for the LAUSD District 3 seat including the incumbent and I’d suggest casting a vote for Filiberto. He is endorsed by the San Fernando Valley chapter of NOW and the Daily News said, “For voters seeking an alternative to Galatzan, we recommend Filiberto Gonzalez, a nonprofit fundraiser who makes a forceful case against the incumbent and would be the strongest runoff opponent.”
This is tricky because Tamar Galatzan and I share friends. I know I’m sticking my neck out but Galatzan was a driving force behind the iPad program which is now being investigated by the Federal Government. I don’t know that she won’t be indicted at worst and at best she proved herself to be one of many terrible decision makers. Further, it seems as though there are irregularities in her campaign including possibly using LAUSD funds and influence for her own campaign materials.
Read the whole story on the Gonzalez blog:
My campaign filed a formal complaint today against incumbent board member,Tamar Galatzan, for several campaign ethics violations. We submitted evidence to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, which enforces campaign finance and ethics rules in LAUSD School Board races, to illustrate Ms. Galatzan’s misuse of government funds and resources.
We believe Ms. Galatzan has violated the following local and state laws:
- The Governmental Ethics Ordinance as described on the website of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission: http://ethics.lacity.org/govethics/
- The Political Reform Act related to identification requirements for advertisements (pg. 3-8): http://www.fppc.ca.gov/manuals/manual2local.pdf
- The Political Reform Act related to mass mailings sent at public expense under Regulation 18901:http://www.fppc.ca.gov/factsheets/048-1-2013%20Mass%20Mailing%20at%20Public%20Expense%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf
Again, this is sticky and I hope it won’t ruin longstanding friendships but the reality is that I have children in private school not because I wanted them to be there but because my son was presented with such awful options for kindergarten that I had no choice but enroll him in a private school. My daughter had a great year once and then a teacher who gave her candy throughout the day and didn’t know her name by December. We tried. We still pay in to the LAUSD in our property taxes every year. Not utilizing the schools doesn’t make us any less a fiscal stakeholder.
Even if we didn’t want to be in public schools we still want them to be good. Even if your kids are raised or you never want kids or you just hate kids and schools, guess what goes up when schools are good? Your property value. And crime goes down.
I’m asking you to be invested in LAUSD just for a moment. Just to vote if that’s all the passion you can swing.
District 3 includes Studio City, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood, West Hills, Porter Ranch, Northridge, Chatsworth, North Hills, Lake Balboa, Granada Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, Encino, Winnetka, Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Valley Village and Van Nuys. District 3 alone could be it’s own school district, couldn’t it.
Next week I’ll talk to you about the minimum wage and how Mayor Garcetti would like to see it raised here in LA. It makes sense and we’ll talk about it and then I’ll be done talking about Los Angeles politics for a while. I promise.