With 100 percent of the votes still not cast–and more to the point, not going to be–the results are official: Michael Shane Ellis, the so-called “worst school board member in Long Beach history,” has defeated Randy Gordon, the so-called “self-appointed mayor of Long Beach.”

The troubled Ellis will not face the recall election sought by the troubling Gordon, CEO of the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, who lately has been pouring his organization’s money and influence into referendums to reverse the decisions of voters and their local representatives.

Gordon, who famously gave Ellis the “worst-ever” label last fall, couldn’t collect enough signatures by the May 14 deadline to qualify a recall initiative for this November’s ballot. Instead, Ellis becomes the first ever to survive an assault by Gordon, who we started calling “the self-appointed mayor of Long Beach” last year when he began steamrolling elected Mayor Bob Foster and the council.

“Please don’t call me that,” Gordon pleaded at the time. “I certainly don’t consider myself the mayor.”

We’ll have to think about that–because after what just happened in Gordon’s campaign against Ellis, he doesn’t seem so mayoral, anymore. But first we’re going to think about this: How bad does somebody like Gordon have to be to lose to a guy like Ellis?

Ellis has been a mess since joining the school board in April 2006-winning an uncontested election when incumbent Suja Lowenthal suddenly quit the race to run for City Council. He’s 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.

Despite all those transgressions and three months to exploit them, Gordon’s street team couldn’t gather the necessary 6,944 signatures. Gordon didn’t return phone calls from the District requesting an explanation–his silence was rather uncharacteristic, to say the least–and he sounded rather chagrined in comments that appeared in the Press-Telegram.

“Obviously, we would have difficulty making the [May 14] deadline,” Gordon told the P-T’s Kevin Butler. “I’m not saying we wouldn’t make it, but I’m not sure we would, either. Gordon also suggested that the Chamber’s signature-gatherers were at a disadvantage against those employed by the promoters of state propositions.

But Gordon hired a political consultant and spent untold amounts on his anti-Ellis effort, too. He was shooting his mouth off pretty confidently–and very idealistically–when he launched the campaign.

“The Long Beach Chamber cannot sit back and let an unethical person lead one of the nation’s biggest school districts,” Gordon proclaimed then, claiming it was a terrible example to the kids. ”We need about 8,000 signatures, and I think we can do that. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re pretty good at this.”

Pretty good? Until now they’ve been undefeated.

Last year, Gordon used signature-gathering campaigns to stymie two ordinances that the Mayor and City Council had passed to protect working people–one prohibiting big-box stores from undercutting union jobs by selling groceries, the other offering lowly paid workers in hotels located on city land the choice to join a union. Gordon’s lists of signatures required Long Beach to put those ordinances to a public vote. But when the council began to plan the referendums that Gordon had made necessary–referendums that, together, carried a $500,000 cost–Gordon attacked them for wasting the taxpayers’ money. And the council backed down.

All this has played out since 2006, when the Chamber sued the City of Long Beach to overturn its Campaign Reform Act, a voter-approved initiative that placed limits on political contributions. It won a court decision that is currently being appealed.

In the meantime, Gordon has made no secret that the Chamber has been raising lots of money for its Political Action Committee (PAC)–nor that the organization intends to spend it. However, he emphasizes that PAC funds are separate from the Chamber’s membership dues and promises that no membership money will be spent on political operations “as long as I’m CEO.”

“We don’t need to do that,” Gordon has been snorting. “There are enough people out there to give us [PAC] money over and above that.”

With such heavy moneybags to dangle before candidates and to swing at incumbents, it’s hard to understand how a no-account like Ellis was able to survive–until you consider the results of the April 8 school board elections, which suggest that the furor over Ellis wasn’t really the issue at all.

Victories by Chamber-supported incumbents Felton Williams and Jon Meyer ensures a Chamber-supported majority on the board–that is, an insurmountable advantage over board members supported by the teachers union–for two years … which is how much longer Ellis will be in office. In other words, Gordon’s campaign against Ellis was little more than a strategy to protect the Chamber-favored majority, in case either Williams or Meyer had lost in the election.

Gordon suddenly thinks that living with the so-called “worst school board member in Long Beach history” until 2010 seems … well … livable. We’ll go along with that. As for living with the so-called “self-appointed mayor of Long Beach”? Not so much, we think.

Tags: DUI, Felton Williams, Jon Meyer, Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, long beach school board, Michael Shane Ellis, randy gordon, Recall election, suja lowenthal

COMMENTS

1

(Note: The following is a copy of a comment I submitted to lbpost.com regarding its usage of the Chamber’s press release.)

Sorry, the LBPost gets a big red “F” on this one! This is not reporting the news; it is a case of repeating a source of the news and a blatant example of biased propaganda. Running the verbatim full text of the Chamber’s statement without any attempt to balance the story with input from Mr. Ellis or allow him to counter with his perspective is disingenuous to say the least.

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Posted By Citizen Journalist Dwight K Snider on April 26th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
2

The difficulty with the chamber’s recall is that the number of signatures needed far exceeds the turnout in almost any election in that district; something above 6000 signatures. My understanding is that several signature collectors were actually warned by building managers not to go door knocking for their own safety. As for the LBPost “reporting” DKS seems to be reaching–a la Bill Pearl but without the jealousy–for printing a “news release”. Get over it. Criticize other outlets for printing it as well. Failure on this was originally by Lowenthal for pulling out and letting Ellis have the seat–after Shannon failed and let him on the ballot despite failing residency requirement. In the end the guy (Ellis) is a low life and our kids are better if he just creapt under a rock in someone else’s district.

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Posted By Fred P on April 26th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
3

How ironic to see Ellis slap the disgusting hypocrite Gordon!

It’s so amazing that Gordon, with a straight face, can volunteer his time as an “auctioneer” at the annual fundraising dinner for Miller Childrens Hospitals Childrens Cancer Center while his union for businesses fights “green” Port legislation that could conceivably lessen the amount of Long Beach schoolchildren dying from cancer each year, whose cancer is possibly due to Port pollution. All the while boasting about helping Long Beach schoolchildren by removing one of five Schoolboard members. I’ll see him at the dinner this June, and hope I don’t throw up my expensive meal while this scab jumps around the room.

I now find out what businesses belong to his union so I can make sure to never patronize them, if at all any way possible.

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Posted By John on April 27th, 2008 at 12:12 am
4

Hey Fred, I appreciate your insights regarding the nuts and bolts of how Ellis ended up on the board. Yours, too, John, regarding the blind business-always mindset that drives the Chamber’s PAC.

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Posted By Dave Wielenga on April 27th, 2008 at 7:53 am
5

In the event that the harmful teacher union candidates were to win and form a majority on the board, it was a good thing someone was focussed on recalling Ellis. It’s a moot point now. Good prevailed.

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Posted By lbresident on April 27th, 2008 at 10:27 am
6

I can’t agree with you that they were harmful; I thought all the candidates were very well qualified. What was harmful was a previous Board member who (supposedly) admittedly showed up to Board meetings unprepared, and simply agreed with the LBUSD recomendations (agreeing like the current majority on the Board). His “teacher union candidate” replacement has done an excellent job.

Obviously Ellis is a disgrace (just like Randy Gordon), but I doubt that the LBUSD or the Press-Telegram investigated other Board members (except maybe Barton) like they have Ellis.

By the way, does anyone know if it’s true that the LBUSD provides funding to the Press-Telegram for Kevin Butler’s LBUSD public relations announcements?

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Posted By John on April 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
7

For me this isn’t about the PT. It isn’t really even about the chamber. They do some good things for the city and some things that are not so good.

What this is about is not letting the teacher’s union control the school board. We don’t want to end up like LAUSD. We are fortunate to have a school district that for the most part is run well. If anything we need to move further away from the teacher union influence. Things like pay for performance, vouchers, and other “choice” based initiatives would be helpful for our kids but they can never happen if the union is controlling things.

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Posted By lbresident on April 27th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
8

If all you know about the School Board, it’s members, and TALB is gleaned from the Press-Telegram, then I say to you that you are only getting one tainted side of things and are not fully informed.

I certainly disagree with your opinion that vouchers and teacher pay based on test results are helpful for our kids. Not being disrespectful, but did you learn about those items in the Press-Telegram also?

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Posted By John on April 27th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
9

Actually, it was Foster (backed by the Chamber) who sabotaged the city council’s support of hotel workers. He used a rare veto to kill the council’s “labor-peace” measure in early ‘07.
He then sided up with Chamber interests again this year to crush the Teamster-led effort to organize port truck drivers.

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Posted By Truckin' on April 27th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
10

Actually, in the end, it was Foster’s THREAT to use his veto that caused the council to back down from the “labor peace agreement” it had passed after negotiating it through several incarnations … and that came after the Chamber had collected enough signatures to force a referendum.

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Posted By Dave Wielenga on April 27th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
11

John I know a lot about the teachers union, an awful lot. And to the background checks on candidates not Ellis or Barton, those currently sitting are all long, long time Long Beach residents and volunteers–we’re talking decades of involvement before being on the school board. Stanton and Meyer have children who went through the district and grandchildren in it. Barton and Ellis were carpet baggers. Barton has been much better than Ellis, but still the background in the community is missing. John, good luck with your boycott, you will have to do all of your business outside of the city probably as the Chamber has an incredible membership that is very active supporting our city and ensuring a healthy business environment. By the way, if others supported your boycott do you have any clue how many people would be out of jobs? An overwhelming majority of the Chamber membership is small and medium sized businesses; from small home based businesses to places employing 5, 10, 20 people–businesses like The District Weekly are typical. But I guess it is okay to just be anti-business. By the way, before Gordon came the Chamber was broke and on the verge of insolvency–he saved it, stabilized it and grew it to a healthy and vibrant organization. The only organization in the city standing up for businesses, employers and job retention and growth in the city.

Ellis can still be removed but someone else inside TALB will need to dish some dirt on the process under which he came in; now with McVarish gone there is a chance.

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Posted By Fred P on April 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
12

For sometime now I have been toying around here with the idea of being a citizen journalist. Yesterday, I googled “citizen journalist” and to my surprise discovered that such an animal actually exists. I would like at this time to share some of the information I discovered on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

According to the seminal report, “We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information” citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism, is the act of citizens “playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information.” Authors of the report, Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis, continue: “The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.” Citizen journalism should not be confused with civic journalism, which is practiced by professional journalists. Citizen journalism is a specific form of citizen media as well as user-generated content.

In a 2003 Online Journalism Review article, J. D. Lasica classifies media for citizen journalism into the following types:

1.) Audience participation (such as user comments attached to news stories, personal blogs, photos or video footage captured from personal mobile cameras, or local news written by residents of a community). 2.) Independent news and information Websites. 3.) Full-fledged participatory news sites. 4.) Collaborative and contributory media sites. 5.) Other kinds of “thin media.” (mailing lists, email newsletters). 6.) Personal broadcasting sites.

Freelance journalist Mark Glasser who frequently writes on new media issues offers the following:

“The idea behind citizen journalism is that people without
professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others. For example, you might write about a city council meeting on your blog or in an online forum. Or you could fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog. Or you might snap a digital photo of a newsworthy event happening in your town and post it online. Or you might videotape a similar event and post it on a site such as “Youtube.”

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Posted By Dwight K Snider on April 27th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
13

“Truckin”, what happened is Foster pushed the Long Beach Port Commissioners into eliminating the employee only status in the Long Beach plan in favor of allowing “owner operators”, which is the current failed trucking system in the ports. He bent over for the trucking special interests,
saying it was to avoid litigation, which was a joke as the trucking special interests sued anyways. Fortunately, the Port of Los Angeles Commissioners are much more savvy, and understand that without structured trucking companies who will be able to reinvest in equipment down the road, and maintain the current equipment, pollution controls and the plan itself wil not be effective or sustainable. Not to mention the security and safety aspects of having someone whose background and experience etc has been verified legitimately. Poor Long Beach, always a Mayberry RFD with Floyd, Goober, Arnold et al next door to the big city.

I do understand that the Teamsters were pushing for this, but they can’t organize an independant “owner operator” as it’s illegal. And even if they are employees someday, it is far from certain that they will unionize. Aside from such few unionized trucking companies anymore or even successful organizing drives, these guys cultural differences and beliefs make it a slim chance that they’ll unionize. It’s really just a BS line from the Chamber of Commerce or some other such group, that the employee only requirement in the LA plan is just a front for Teamster representation.

Fred Fred Fred, I am not antibusiness, just anti-asshole. I am your average Joe Citizen, my economic impact is minor. I do know that my church, favorite restaurants and some other establishments I patronize do not belong to Randy “hypocrite” Gordons union. I did learn my bank and favorite coffee house pay dues to him, so I will take my business elsewhere-after I tell them why. Interesting how businesses have reacted to this when in the past I have withdrawn patronage with an explanation. And there are more than enough businesses that do not drink Gordons kool-aid. I am so glad he revitalized the Chamber, and I hope you and the rest of his members are proud of the Chamber anti-pollution legislation positions. Is that what you call “ensuring a healthy business environment”? And also “actively supporting the city”?

Pay close attention to Gordon, and you’ll find he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. If I paid dues to belong to his union I’d be considering withdrawing very seriously.

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Posted By John on April 27th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
14

John, choice leads to competition. Competition leads to improvement. Accountability also leads to improvement. Currently, teachers are not held accountable and there is no competition. That said, a lot of teacher’s are good and the reasons for poor student performance are driven much more by absent or non-caring parents than anything else.

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Posted By lbresident on April 27th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
15

lbresident, no disrespect but your response sounds like a canned george will position. The issue is much more involved and should not be compared to a simplistic business statement. And with the failed NCLB Teachers are held accountable to a degree are they not?

I think the world of Teachers, and obviously so do the majority of voters, as proved when arnold tried to demonize them. Additionally, another good example was a few years ago when the superintendant and the Schoolboard incumbents stupidly took some consultant’s advice and sent certain letters out, at the taxpayers expense, bashing the Teacher supported Schoolboard candidates. Talk about receiving free campaign mailers! We know the results.

I do agree with you that the parents are most responsible for poor student performance. The schools spend more on the poor performers, it seems like, at the expense of the performers.

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Posted By John on April 27th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
16

The LB Chamber’s political program is OVERRATED. They are just fortunate enough to have the PT as their no/low cost PR machine. The truth of the matter is they consistently lose campaigns in the field, and the Ellis recall would have required a field strategy and able management of such. How much money did Gordon and his yes men waste? The Chamber should get away from the dark side and dump Lord Vador, Randy Gordon.

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Posted By A.A. on April 28th, 2008 at 7:44 am
17

I don’t know whether it sounds canned or not but I believe the union is not only bad for students, it is bad for good teachers. Why good teachers support a structure that pays them the same as bad teachers I will never understand.

Regardless, I’m glad we agree that the real source of our educational problems is bad parents. Parents who value education have children who value education.

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Posted By lbresident on April 28th, 2008 at 10:54 am
18

Dave,

You were in Mexico too long to understand this in a big picture sense. The Chamber has always been a loser until 2007, with many losses, and most always thought that a Chamber endorsment was the kiss of death. They were contunally defeated until the unions had other things to do than support the policies monetarily. This “win” was a lucky draw for the chamber, as all Chamber insiders were girding for a loss with labor peace agreement and the wal-mart deal. Just ask anybody on the inside of the Chamber how confident they were before Schipske pulled her vote.

As for Ellis, this is not a loss for Gordon. They have lost before, but they pound it into the ground until they can’t go anymore, then they spin it into a win. No, this was a calculated win for them. The only reason why the Chamber came out on top in the School Board elections is because MIchael Ellis is on the Board.

WIthout Michael Ellis, TALB is stronger. On the board, TALB is weak and split. The Chamber needs Michael Ellis.

I like you Dave, but trust someone who has been around, this was a calculated decision. The day before the election, the Chamber was still ready to pump money intogetting signatures. They need, and want Ellis on the board.

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Posted By John Galt on April 28th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
19

I agree. The chamber (of horrors) should dump this “annoying” (doug krikorians word) hypocrite before his rabid-dog behaviour bites it in the ass. I think he feels he’s invincible due to his limited past successes. Certainly members of his union don’t want to be painted by the same brush that he’s been busy painting himself with. How do you think his members will feel when their position welcoming Port pollution, pollution that affectes Long Beach schoolchildren, becomes well-publicized?

I know Teachers who I would bet are amazing with their classroom kids, who have devoted years to teaching, who support TALB to this day. They tell me they would have had the 1% non-retroactive raise had it not been for TALB, when they received the 4% retroactive raise. I feel our Teachers are way underpaid, and it infuriated me that the LBUSD wanted to shortchange them the last time around. Additionally, the proposal for an “Inspector General” in the LBUSD made a lot of sense. Too bad the powers that be aren’t interested in someone looking over their shoulder. See what Laura Doud is accomplishing in the city?

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Posted By John on April 28th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
20

John, don’t forget that many heard how rotten Ellis is, over and over, from the Chamber union, and how he HAD to go.

Don’t believe that informed people won’t think less of gordon and his union after their sorry bail-out.

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Posted By John on April 29th, 2008 at 9:08 am

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