Two Coalitions Battle for Los Nietos School Board Seats

LOS NIETOS — School board seats on the smallest district in Southeast Los Angeles County have become a hot property, with three Huntington Park residents moving to Los Nietos to run for the board and three others forming a coalition to fight them.

Alan Kartsman, Louie Aragon and Louis Manzano all declared a house on Slauson Avenue as their legal residence when they filed to run last summer for the Los Nietos School District board. All moved from Huntington Park, where two ran for the City Council last year.

The situation has left school officials and residents puzzled about why their district, which pays board members no salary and has only four schools, would become the object of such a power struggle.

“With three (of five) seats open and running on a slate, it’s possible they could in fact take over the board,” said Los Nietos Supt. Terry Giboney. “The issue of motivation has been a question on the minds of many people.”

‘They’re Carpetbaggers’

Los Nietos board member Leonard Munoz was more direct. “They’re carpetbaggers trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the voters in this district,” Munoz said.

Kartsman dismisses such charges.

“Most people can see that’s plain mudslinging,” Kartsman said. “I’ve decided to make my permanent home in the Los Nietos district. I have no plans to do anything else.”

Aragon, Manzano and Louis F. Sanchez are challenging incumbents Sylvia Orona and Adeline (Addie) Rocha for two seats with four-year terms, while Kartsman and C. Renee Frazier are running for a two-year term created earlier this year by the resignation of a board member.

Frazier said the Kartsman coalition is trying to take advantage of voter apathy. Fewer than 500 people cast ballots in the last election in the district, which serves part of Santa Fe Springs, a corner of west Whittier and the unincorporated Los Nietos area. The district has an enrollment of 1,952 students, 87% Latino.

“The community is upset--they don’t know what their motives are, they don’t know what their platforms are,” Frazier said. “On the other hand, we do have a lot of apathy and I’m afraid a lot of people might not be aware of the circumstances.”

Kartsman, Aragon and Manzano did not attend a candidate’s forum this month, instead concentrating on door-to-door campaigning in which they have handed out absentee ballot forms along with their literature.

Kartsman and Aragon are not new to politics. Kartsman has run unsuccessfully twice for the Huntington Park City Council, most recently last year with Aragon as a running mate. Kartsman and Aragon used the absentee ballot strategy in that election. Each received about 25% of his votes from absentee ballots, according to figures provided by Huntington Park City Clerk Marilyn Boyette.

The number of absentee ballots cast in that election was the most ever in Huntington Park history, and about three times as many as in the previous election, Boyette said.

“It’s a new political tool and it’s a frightening one because people have been coerced into doing things at their front door,” said Councilman Jim Roberts of Huntington Park.

The law on absentee ballots says that voters must be the ones who mail the ballot request or deliver it to the registrar’s office. Giboney said he is worried that some residents may be unaware of that provision and turn the ballots over to the candidates. “I urge all voters to mail the ballots themselves,” he said.

Kartsman said soliciting the absentee vote is “nothing new,” adding that negative publicity about his campaign has come from other candidates and political foes in Huntington Park. Kartsman denied that he had collected any ballots.

Status Questioned

His opponents also have questioned whether Kartsman, Aragon and Manzano are legal residents. But according to the election code, 29 days at one address and declaring an intent to remain in the district are enough to establish residency.

If elected, Kartsman said he would work to “upgrade the community.”

“I didn’t like what was going on. It’s going downhill,” he said, calling for more community participation and support. He said he did not attend the candidate’s forum because he had to take his father to the hospital. Kartsman has been attending school board meetings for the past year, Giboney said.

Kartsman, 32, a substitute teacher and a vocal critic of Huntington Park politics, said he was driven from that city by threats from residents and the police.

After he lost the Huntington Park City Council race last year, Kartsman was behind an unsuccessful recall drive against two councilmen. A woman who said she worked for Kartsman and collected signatures for the recall pleaded guilty and was fined for misrepresenting the petition as one opposing toxic waste.

He said he has worked for several years in the Los Nietos district, and is currently doing substitute teacher work in the district for a couple of months. But Giboney said Kartsman has not worked in the Los Nietos district since September and his employment with the district has never lasted longer than a few weeks at a time.

Kartsman also says he is a real estate broker for his family’s corporation, which he says handles mostly low-income housing programs but also some property in the Philippines and Mexico.

Kartsman said he, Aragon and Manzano are running as a slate to save money--spending about $100 combined so far--but do not have the same platform. The three listed the same address and phone number with the county registrar, but the phone number belongs to Kartsman’s father who lives in Huntington Park. Kartsman said a phone was not installed in his new address because he has received numerous telephone threats and doesn’t want anyone to know where he lives.

Aragon, who lists his occupation as “instructor,” said his main goal is to raise teacher salaries in the district to $50,000 or $60,000. Asked if the district’s budget would allow such increases, Aragon, 24, said he had no comment. He also refused to elaborate on his occupation. He refused to say how long he has lived in the Los Nietos area, whether he had ever attended a school board meeting in the district and why he did not attend the candidate’s forum.

Repeated attempts to contact Manzano were unsuccessful. Manzano, 28, listed his occupation as “teacher” and is a former aide to U.S. Rep. Augustus Hawkins.

Candidates Frustrated

Other candidates in the school board race say they are frustrated by their elusive opponents.

Frazier, Sanchez and Orona joined to form the Committee for Better Education.

“The committee was a way to fight them,” Frazier said. “I don’t want to say that’s the only issue, but that did play a major part because usually candidates in this area have run independently.”

Frazier, 32, a homemaker, said she wants to increase parent participation in the district and create a closer coalition between area schools and the business community. She has been a member of the site council at Los Nietos Middle School, is chairman of a district advisory committee and a member of the Whittier College women’s auxiliary.

Sanchez, 43, owns a glass and mirror business in Whittier and says he also wants more parent participation with the board. Sanchez is president of the Pioneer High School Booster Club and is past president of the Whittier Youth Football League.

Repeated attempts to contact Orona were not successful. Orona, 40, lists her occupation as incumbent.

The lone independent candidate in the race is incumbent Adeline (Addie) Rocha, 65, who has served eight years on the board. She said she wants the board to continue working closely with the City Council of Santa Fe Springs, which has given the district money from time to time. Rocha also wants to develop a program for retaining the district’s 90 teachers, 19 of whom left last year.

Rocha has been endorsed by the Los Nietos Teachers Assn. and the local California State Employees’ Assn.