Editorial:
This week we celebrate the contributions of the working man/woman of America on Labor Day. We celebrate his toil, sweat, and sacrifice to make this a great nation. It is the labor of the working man and woman who move this nation forward.
While we celebrate the working man/woman, we are reminded that Labor Day also signals the un-official kick-off for most local elections. In days gone by this would mean two hard months of campaigning were left to win voters over.
Things are different today. With mail in ballots becoming more and more popular- and with those ballots being mailed the first week of October, this now means there is basically only one month of campaigning to reach early voters!
While mail in ballots have made it convenient for the voter, it has also made it a tad bit more difficult for those newspapers, especially weeklies such as La Prensa San Diego, to do our due diligence and provide our recommendations/endorsements for candidates and ballot measures. This now has to be done within the short time frame of one month. More difficult – yes, but we move undaunted.
With that in mind La Prensa wants to take a look at the upcoming Sweetwater Union High School District Board races.
For the first time in history, board members will be elected by geographical district areas. This makes it more economical and easier to campaign. Also for the first time there will be a limit on campaign contributions, meaning that no individual can contribute more than $750. Lastly with Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s bill, school administrators are banned from raising money for board member’s campaigns.
Presently there are 21 candidates running within the five geographical areas. That is a large number of candidates that we know very little about. But there are two candidates we know a lot about. However La Prensa question is; why are those two candidates running for election?’
The two known candidates are Jim Cartmill for trustee, area 3, and Bertha Lopez for trustee, area 2.
Both of these candidates are former Sweetwater School Board Members that for the last two years were under indictment, charged with public corruption. This year they pleaded guilty for accepting gifts and lost their seats on the board. Now they are trying to regain their old position.
In the case of Jim Cartmill it is difficult for us to understand why he would feel the need to run again? It is not as if he has any unfinished business on the board. He has already served on the Sweetwater School Board for 24 long years, none of the students going to school now were even born when Cartmill was first elected. La Prensa’s position is that a school board seat should not be for a lifetime, especially in the case of Mr. Cartmill who pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from contractors.
In the case of convicted board member Bertha Lopez, her reason for running for trustee is not all that difficult to figure out. Bertha believes along with the support of several members of the community that she with her husband Jose Lopez (who sits on the Otay Water board) is a political juggernaut in the South Bay community. Bertha needs this elected seat to continue in her self serving role of being a political mover and shaker.
In the case of Bertha Lopez any controversy you find her involved with, she will be at the center of that chaos. This has always been Bertha way of doing business, create an atmosphere of chaos, so that friends and supporters can benefit. Of course always at the expense of the education of students. A prime example of this was her political campaign to have Principal Robert Bleisch of Castle Park Middle School, fired.
The chaos on the Sweetwater School Board and district over the years was due to a lack of leadership that can be attributed directly to some board members, but especially to Cartmill and Lopez. The negative news stories, the chaos at board meetings, illegal dealings with private institutions, and shady real estate deals that finally ended in legal indictments of the board can all be attributed to Cartmill and Lopez while they served as board trustees.
The upcoming November election represents a fresh clean start for the district. This is a long awaited opportunity for the district to clean out the negative residues that was left behind by the last school board. It is La Prensa’s opinion that if either Cartmill or Lopez (or both) are elected again that all of the negative residues left from the last chaotic years, will surely return. Cartmill’s and Lopez’s elections to the board will have the political effect of blunting any honest efforts by newly elected board members to diligently work to bring about much needed integrity to the Sweetwater Union High School District.
La Prensa believes that both Cartmill and Lopez have lost their rights to serve as elected official, after pleading guilty to crimes while serving as board members. It is La Prensa’s position that neither candidate offer anything so valuable (to the community) that warrants voters to consider them for public office.
The decision rests in the hands of the voters.