The election is over, but before getting to who won I thought I’d share two proposals to acknowledge the non-winners both in the WCCUSD BOE and also at the county level. I sent them as letters to the WCCUSD BOE.
Antonio Medrano
The Actual Opening of the WCCUSD Board Race…Sort Of
What triggered my previous post was the discovery that the teachers union for West Contra Costa, the United Teachers of Richmond (UTR), has already made an endorsement (or at least half of one) for the November race. Here’s the timeline as I understand it:
WCCUSD Board of Education Election 2012: Main Institutional Endorsements
There are 4 candidates running for 2 seats on the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board of Education. One aspect of the campaign process is garnering endorsements from various organizations and the main local paper. Here is the current scorecard:
| Randy Enos | Todd Groves | Antonio Medrano | Robert Studdiford |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Cerrito Democratic Club | X | |||
| Contra Costa Central Labor Council | X | X | ||
| Democratic Party of Contra Costa County | X | X | ||
| United Teachers of Richmond | X | X | ||
| Public Employees Union, Local No. 1 | X | X | ||
| Contra Costa Times | X | X |
The Endorsers
The El Cerrito Democratic Club has been the only active party club in the district. (A new one in Hercules is starting up.) It combines a candidate Q&A forum with a members-only ballot at the end.
The Central Labor Council is the county version of the AFL-CIO. They send out a questionnaire and then interview and endorse candidates.
The county Democratic Party has an elected Central Committee. Candidates fill out and submit a short questionnaire. A subcommittee interviews candidates. Then, this subcommittee recommends candidates to the full committee.
The teachers union also sends out a questionnaire first. (The answers are distributed to all teachers.) The union executive board interviews candidates and passes on a recommendation to the general council of representatives from all of the schools. At the general meeting, the candidates get to make a brief pitch to the whole assembly before a ballot is taken.
“Local 1” is the union for most of the non-teacher employees in WCCUSD. Their board interviews candidates and decides who to endorse.
The Contra Costa Times is the local paper that pays the most attention to WCCUSD. They interview the candidates before deciding. This time they are posting the video of the interview in the endorsement editorial.
This post was originally published on September 19th, but was updated and republished once the Contra Costa Times endorsed.
Follow the Money for the WCCUSD Candidates
The first of two pre-election campaign finance filings has occured. Here are the results for these four West Contra Costa Unified School District candidates for two available seats:
Here are some graphs comparing donations, remaining cash balances, and donation sources as of Sept. 30 with a table following at the end. “Construction Interests” as a category includes organizations (companies, unions, and trade associations) and individuals. “Individuals” and “Organizations” refer to individuals and organizations that aren’t construction-related. Donations under $100 aren’t itemized and are just reported as a single aggregate number in each report.
| Total Donations | Construction Interests | Organzations | Indivduals | Under $100 | Cash Balance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enos | $1,164 | $0 | $249 | $850 | $65 | $1,164 |
| Groves | $7,281 | $0 | $0 | $5,372 | $1,859 | $3,592 |
| Medrano | $4,202 | $1,000 | $0 | $2,800 | $402 | $1,794 |
| Studdiford | $50,340 | $49,050 | $0 | $100 | $1,190 | $42,632 |
Pre-election Filing Deadline Today: Follow the Money Day Almost Here
Today is an important milestone in the November election. This is when campaigns have to file a report of their income and expenses up to September 30th. Hopefully, all the reports will be online by Monday. That would make Monday a triple holiday: Columbus Day, Follow the Money Day, and Beginning of Vote-by-Mail Day. Here’s the link for Contra Costa County:
The biggest thing to watch is For the Children of West County, the PAC that bankrolls bond and parcel tax campaigns with money from construction interests, all marshaled together by Charles Ramsey. Here are some direct links to known WCCUSD PACs and candidates:
- For the Children of West County
- United Teachers of Richmond PAC
- Political Education Committee of Public Employees Local One
I’ll report on what I find from Follow the Money Day after it happens.
Note: There’s one more pre-election filing deadline on the 25th.