Calling Michael Shane Ellis a good-for-nothing, drinking-and-driving, hitting-and-running, all-around no account member of the Long Beach school board is simply not right. Not anymore. Not the good-for-nothing part, anyway.

A month after the re-election of two school board incumbents supported by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, the organization’s CEO and president acknowledges that Ellis’s controversial presence on the school board was good-great, actually–for the Chamber’s strategy in the April 8 election.

“You’re absolutely right,” says Randy Gordon, who was at the forefront of a high-profile drive to recall Ellis. “We used Ellis to rally the troops.”

The outrage whipped up by the effort to recall Ellis-who Gordon describes as “the worst school board member in Long Beach history”–translated into crucial support for incumbents Felton Williams and John Meyer.

 ”People who were drawn to the school board issue by Ellis then learned there was a danger that the teachers union candidates could take over the school board,” Gordon explains. “When people gave money to help recall Ellis we were able to twist their arms to give money to re-elect Williams and Meyer.”

That unabashed explanation is typical of Gordon. So is the fact that he called the District to provide it after reading a story on the website that strongly criticized him for canceling the Ellis recall drive on April 24-less than two weeks after Felton and Meyer won. The story suggested that Gordon’s campaign against Ellis was little more than a Plan B to protect the Chamber-favored majority, in case either Williams or Meyer had lost. It also chided Gordon for failing to return phone calls requesting comment-although we did remark that “his silence was rather uncharacteristic, to say the least.”

“I was in Catalina and didn’t get your message!” Gordon insisted, reciting his cell number to be sure it never happens again. “I’ve been here 14 years and I never ignore the media. I’m always happy to talk.”

True. Say what you want about Gordon-we have-but the guy does not duck a question, back down from his answers or take criticism personally. That makes him rare in Long Beach public policy circles dominated by hypersensitive types who specialize in fluffyspeak when they’re not no-commenting or off-the-recording-or petulantly shutting off anyone who has uttered a less-than-admiring word.

Ellis, meanwhile, isn’t talking about the mess he’s been since joining the school board in April 2006. He has pleaded guilty to a DUI and no-contest to leaving the scene of a traffic accident and driving with a suspended license. He’s violated his probation for both. He’s had a poor attendance record at board meetings, was censured and asked to resign by school board colleagues and has failed to turn in a required statement of his economic interests - or even to reveal his address.

Gordon comes right out and acknowledges that the Chamber used campaign materials that kicked some of Ellis’s dirt onto teachers union-supported candidates Rosa Diaz and Paul Crost.

“We all but had Ellis behind bars, and we had his image superimposed with the [union-supported] candidates,” Gordon says. “So Ellis spoke volumes in this whole election. And when the voters spoke they said they were tired of a small, militant teachers group trying to take over the school board.”

Gordon denies, perhaps a little less candidly, that canceling the Ellis recall reveals the insincerity of the Chamber’s objections to him.

“Our goal was to get Ellis recalled,” Gordon maintains. “He’s a bad school board member, a bad example to students-he’s a strange duck. The bottom line is that we worked very hard to get rid of him.

“But are we happy about the election? Damn right. We felt it was one of the most important-if not the most important-in the history of the district. If one of those candidates had lost, there would have been a union takeover.”

The current composition of the board assures a Chamber-backed majority until 2010, when Ellis’ term expires. In the meantime, the Chamber can shop for a candidate to replace him-probably somebody besides Josh Lowenthal, the Long Beach political scion who the Chamber had approached about running in the event that Ellis had been recalled. Lowenthal says he had already decided not to run for that seat.

Says Gordon: “Even though we like Josh, we had people come up and say we don’t need another Lowenthal, because you know what’s going to happen: he might be a good school board member, but he’ll only stay for one term, then he’ll be on the city council-and we don’t need another Lowenthal on the city council.”

Josh Lowenthal’s mother (Bonnie) and sister-in-law (Suja) are currently on the city council, and both began their political careers on the school board. His father (Alan, now a state senator) used to be on the council and his brother (Daniel, married to Suja) is a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.

In fact, Ellis’s path to the school board was cleared when Suja Lowenthal quit in the middle of her run for re-election to that seat in 2006 to seek a suddenly available spot on the City Council.

“When our [Chamber signature-gatherering] walkers knocked on Dan and Suja Lowenthal’s door during the Ellis recall effort they were both very positive and supportive,” recounts Gordon. “She oughtta be. In her conscience she probably feels like she’s responsible for Ellis-you know, because she quit.”

Tags: Add new tag, Alan Lowenthal, bonnie lowenthal, Daniel Lowenthal, Felton Williams, Jon Meyer, Josh Lowenthal, Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, long beach school board, Michael Shane Ellis, Randy Ellis, suja lowenthal