A candidate in the contest to replace Michael Ellis faces the same accusation Ellis did three years ago: carpetbagger

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the voting booth, the contest to replace former Long Beach Unified Board of Education member Michael Shane Ellis looms Dec. 29. And—call this Ellis II: Electric Boogaloo, or The Ellis Strikes Back, or some other catchy sequel name—already the allegations of carpetbagging are flying.

Here, briefly, is the situation, though my cover story in Wednesday’s print edition of The District Weekly has more on the race.

Three years ago, you’ll recall that Ellis himself came under fire for allegedly moving into the school board’s District 3 less than 30 days before filing campaign papers to represent it.

This time, the alleged culprit is candidate Kate Erin Conrath, 25, a Los Angeles Unified School District substitute teacher—whose cell phone, it should be noted, still has an Illinois prefix—and, for some, the allegation against her is the only thing intriguing about this election. (They’re wrong about that.)

“The only interesting quirk about [this race] is, that’s what happened with Ellis,” says Long Beach political consultant Jeffrey Adler, who has been hired to manage the campaign of one of Conrath’s four competitors, retired former PTA president Pauline Gonzalez Stenberg.

(The race’s other three candidates are United Cambodian Community Associate Project Director Raymond Chavarria, financial controller Richard G. Lewis, Jr., and John McGinnis, a retired Cerritos Community College dean.)

“I thought this was why you were calling,” City Attorney Robert Shannon says when I reach him to talk about some of the race’s other issues.

Shannon quickly confirms that, yes, a representative of Long Beach Unified School District has contacted the city to raise the possibility that candidate Conrath is indeed a carpetbagger.

But Shannon and Assistant City Attorney Heather Mahood are almost as quick to say emphatically that the city will not be going after Conrath on this one.

“We know that it’s an issue because we’ve been approached,” Shannon says.

But, adds Mahood over the speakerphone: “It’s really not our call; it’s the county or the school district’s call. We’re not going to keep anybody off the ballot.”

Reached on her cell phone, Conrath explains why, nearly four years after moving to California, she only this month registered to vote in this state and is still updating her vehicle registration and her driver’s-license information.

“It’s something I’m kicking myself for. I didn’t see the opportunity coming to me,” Conrath says. “I’m obviously in favor of Ellis resigning as soon as he did, but I wasn’t counting on it. It kind of just came up.”

A Chicago native, Conrath says she moved to Long Beach in early 2006, living first in the 100 block of W. Sixth St., then moving a year-and-a-half ago to the 400 block of W. Seventh St., where she lives now.

Her residency became an issue, Conrath says, because despite moving across the country, she kept returning home to care for her father‚ and thus never updated any of her information.

“I don’t want to pull out the card, but Ellis wasn’t a resident for 30 days” before he ran, Conrath says—all but pulling out the card as she speaks. “I think the whole point of it is that somebody doesn’t just move into the district and try to take over the district.”

That is the point. But unlike in 2006—when Long Beach Unified took Ellis to court—no one seems to be ready for litigation this time.

Tags: Assistant City Attorney Heather Mahood, California, carpetbagging, Cerritos Community College, Chicago, City Attorney Robert Shannon, Jeffrey Adler, John McGinnis, Kate Erin Conrath, Long Beach, Long Beach Unified Board of Education, Long Beach Unified School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, Michael Shane Ellis, Pauline Gonzalez Stenberg, Raymond Chavarria, Richard G. Lewis Jr., Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, United Cambodian Community