Writing Shotgun

GORDON: CHAMBER USED ELLIS RECALL ‘TO RALLY THE TROOPS’

Dave WielengaWed. May 07
 

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.”

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COMMENTS

  1. 1

    I got a kick when I read in the bird-cage liner that Jon Meyer’s election night party was at a bar. Great example for our schoolchildren, and maybe a bit hypocritical.

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    Posted By John on May 7th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

     

  2. 2

    John,
    Did the article say that Meyer was sloshed and passed out against the steering wheel in the middle of the intersection (a la Ellis)? The man is a responsible adult who cares deeply about our city and our children. You should be thankful that he cares.

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    Posted By Dan on May 8th, 2008 at 11:07 am

     

  3. 3

    I’ll give you that one, I would agree that he cares deeply. A party in a bar though? C’mon, you have to see the irony, especially after what Meyer has said about Ellis’ drinking.

    Now for gordon, claiming that the voters are tired of a small militant group of teachers, and that people are telling him all about the Lowenthals. He’s a bullshit artist, aside from being a first class hypocrite. He’s not worried one bit about the students, otherwise he’d be promoting doable legislation that might not poison them so much. But he’s too excited with trashing TALB to bother with that.

    Members of his union are going to tire of his garbage when it gets to hot for them, which will be his making, and undoing.

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    Posted By John on May 8th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

     

  4. 4

    Isn’t that the way Schipske was elected to the council’s 5th district seat - by packing the Democratic party endorsement meeting with teacher union members?

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    Posted By lbwhiner on May 8th, 2008 at 11:34 pm

     

  5. 5

    John, “his union” consists of business owners, business managers and business people. From small businesses run out of living rooms to corporate giants like Boeing, they belong to The Chamber. They are far from tired of what Gordon has done for the business community and his relentless energy to fight anti-business legislation and environments (see many postings on this site for evidence as to what attitudes are). He cares about the students because they are the children of his membership and also the future employees of his membership or better yet in his view his future members as they matriculate and start their own companies. Unlike TALB which takes hundreds of thousands from its members every year, The Chamber donates and fund raises tens of thousands to be put back into the district. He is definitely a polarizing figure in our community–but the business community strongly backs him.

    Whiner: Schipske also won with tens of thousands of dollars of support from TALB–for whom she still draws a paycheck.

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    Posted By LBRez on May 9th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

     

  6. 6

    Dave,

    Your articles on this issue remind me of the story of the late night drunk (not a school board member) looking for his car keys under the streetlamp — not because he lost them there, but because that was where the light was better.

    Would a California Teachers Association-backed takeover of Long Beach schools be inconsequential for area families and children? It’s a big union, Dave, far vaster in scope and power than the LB Chamber. Are our schools good? Bad? Based on your reporting, I have no idea. I don’t think you do, either, and your articles suggest the topic doesn’t interest you. Shouldn’t it? Shouldn’t you actually investigate whether or not Randy Gordon has a valid point, and either validate it or invalidate it?

    Please stop with the sideman’s easy riffing on spotlight hogs like Randy Gordon and start spreading some journalistic light on the sunshine-averse waterbugs who aren’t nearly as forthright. If I haven’t misjudged you, you’re good enough to do stories on people and organizations who WON’T return your calls. (If you need a model, Steve Lopez in the L.A. Times does this routinely, and well.)

    I luv ya, Dave, and I’ll continue to read every word you write. But honestly . . .

    [report]

    Posted By D.Peeve on May 9th, 2008 at 6:00 pm

     

  7. 7

    Hey Mr. Peeve… There is certainly much more to this story, and I am in the process of looking at some of it. But my entry into the story of the School Board election began with the Chamber because this was the first School Board election in which the Chamber took an active role–and because it marked the latest expansion of the Chamber’s pretty-significant influence in local politics. It followed the Chamber’s successful repudiation of the city council’s Big Box Ordinance and its Labor Peace Agreement–achieved by gathering signatures for a referendum that would have forced an election, and then criticizing the city council for “wasting” the money the election would have cost. There is nothing illegal in any of this, but I certainly think it’s worth examining the political power of a group like the Chamber, especially if it intends to continue using this tactic to challenge the decisions of political officials who have been elected by the people. Thanks so much for writing and keeping me on my toes.

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    Posted By Dave Wielenga on May 10th, 2008 at 8:54 am

     

  8. 8

    Dave,

    You’re right about the Chamber’s pronounced entry into local politics, and your coverage of it (yep, read every word) was valuable, important, unmatched by any other media outlet (daily or otherwise) and critical in every good sense of the word.

    What’s dismaying to me about your coverage of school board politics to date is any balance about the California Teachers Association’s entry into our local politics. It is, and was, massive. The 2006 elections in which two CTA-backed candidates made the board, and a third narrowly missed (which would have given CTA control of our local schools) came about with massive CTA infusions of cash and an avalanche of outrageously deceptive campaign literature of a slickness and mendacity never before seen in Iowa by the Sea.

    The CTA local here is still mired in financial doo-doo over this (and why hasn’t the local district attorney looked into the financial mismanagement of the Long Beach teacher’s union? The CTA babysitter comes here, orders up an audit, says there’s nothing wrong here, and everyone believes it? and isn’t it time by now for the babysitter to go home?)

    Just frustrated with what looks from these seats like a blind spot in coverage. And I think it would make a fascinating Wielenga-type story. Are alternative weekly writers eligible for Pulitzers?

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    Posted By D.Peeve on May 11th, 2008 at 9:29 am

     

  9. 9

    Who needs the DA when mayor randy gordon has assigned himself the job of controlling TALB? Thank god we have this pillar of the community looking after the welfare of our schoolchildren, oops does that include their health problems due to the port related pollution? And the pillar and his kool-aid drinkers are fighting legislation to responsibly reduce this pollution?
    Are we talking about the same guy?

    [report]

    Posted By John on May 14th, 2008 at 11:37 pm

     

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