What to Expect as the Election Nears

What to expect.

In the last few weeks of this campaign, it is likely that we will see the same pattern that we have seen in each school board campaign since 1994.

WORKING THE REFS
The anti group will “work the ref” by complaining loudly about perceived injustices that they have been dealt. These injustices are in their minds only, but they will go in mass to the NCTimes.

(Patty Anderson went to the local FOX Affliate before the last election two years ago. Her unfounded and "crazy" charges were so over the top that even the FOX affiliate would not broadcast them.)

The NCTimes will publish, uncritically, their charges in a series of articles. The editors of the NCTimes are VERY anti-union whether it is teacher, firefighter, law enforcement, or store clerk. Even without the biased editorial staff, it would be very difficult for any local paper to stand up to the concerted action of a large group of potential subscribers, especially as newspapers see their circulation stagnate and their ad revenues fall.

CAMPAIGN SIGNS

The anti folks are zealots. They do not think as others think. They project onto others the kind of actions that they, themselves, are taking.

For instance the issue of campaign sign removal. The Anti’s have a long history of removing opposing campaign signs as fast as they go up. Campaign signs for teacher endorsed candidates on Melrose within a half a mile of North Coast Church are taken down within hours of being put up—according to a source who worked on signs in the 1994, 1996 and 1998 campaigns.

A few elections ago, this person said he made a route on a Saturday around Vista posting signs. Near the beginning of the route was Melrose Ave where the North Coast Church is located. On his way back from his three hours of sign posting, he found all the signs within a mile of the church to be already down. All kinds of other political signs for other political offices were still up. All the anti campaigns signs were up including in front of the church; but every single VTA endorsed candidate sign, that had been posted less than three hours before, was gone.

The signs where coming down so fast that another person on the sign committee stamped his wooden posts with an ink stamp. I think he said that he normally used the stamp on student papers. It was a typical teacher stamp.

He came back to the locations where he had posted signs a few days later to find that his signs were gone. There was no trace of them. They were not down or blown off in the weeds. However, he did find his stamped wooden posts. The posts that VTA had bought, the posts he had laboriously affixed to VTA endorsed candidate signs, now were in nearly identical locations with “anti” endorsed candidate signs in place of VTA endorsed candidate signs.

WILD ACCUSATIONS

The anti folks always insist on putting a sign in the vegetation area in front of the offices where the VTA office is. We have always put up our sign next to it. A previous president used to straighten their sign or put it up again if it blew down. During the school board election of two years ago, the owner of the office building site, without consulting the VTA, took down the anti-public education candidate sign as the anti group had not asked his permission to post their signs on his property. He left the VTA sign up because the VTA had asked permission.

The anti group immediately took notice. Apparently they were daily tracking the sign in front of the VTA office.

Our anti crowd howled to the newspaper and without substantiation or investigation accused the teachers of taking down their signs all over the city (not just at this location). They used this location and the removal of their signs as proof. They went to the North County Times and demanded an article. They never checked with the owner of the property or the VTA. The VTA only found out about the “outrage” after being contacted by the NCTimes. The VTA leadership investigated and found out what had happened.

BE THE BETTER PERSON

In every campaign so far, it has been the instructions of the VTA leadership to NEVER, NEVER take down the anti-public education campaign signs. Better to not even touch their signs at all. However, we have had at least two past members of the sign committee who when they stop to post new signs and find one of the anti signs down actually put the anti signs back up again.

We are better people than they are. We have better ethics. We care about the children of the district. They care only about the joy of being in a zealot cause, a crusade. For them the intense emotional pleasure of being in a righteous cause trumps all sense of fairness or ethics. We are not that way. Besides every sign they lose to wind or weather, they blame on us. They also have in the past had followers with cameras sitting in cars waiting to take pictures of anyone touching their signs. DO NOT TAKE DOWN THEIR SIGNS under any circumstance.

FALSE FLAG CAMPAIGN SIGNS

In the last election Patty Anderson put up campaign signs that imitated our signs. She claimed to be the 'teacher's choice' even though she was not endorsed by the teachers. She even had a school symbol (an apple) on her signs that imitated the same symbol on the pro-public education signs in that campaign and ALL PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS. The apple logo had been used by us the pro-public education folks in the PREVIOUS SIX CAMPAIGNS. Patty and her anti crowd well knew what our symbol was. We cannot copyright our symbol but the anti's knew what it was. It speaks very poorly of their ethics to use it to try to confuse voters.

ILLEGAL AND UNTRUE CANDIDATE STATEMENTS IN THE OFFICIAL REGISTRAR OF VOTER -- VOTER INFORMATION GUIDE.

Guffanti claims to be a teacher in each of his candidate statements. Intentionally confusing voters who think he is or was a classroom teacher. He also ususally has some slanderous statements. This time he illegally endorsed another "anti" candidate in his statement. NO candidate is allowed to endorse any other candidate in a candidate statement in the official Registrar of Voters booklet. Guffanti knows this. He has run for school board time after time. Knowing something is illegal and unethical dis not stop him from trying to get this illegal statement included. His statement was not removed or checked by the Registrar's office. There 'wasn't enough time'.

Our 'anti' friends never play by the rules. They never play fair. Those of you who expect candidates like Guffanti who use their 'christian' credentials as major election tools are sometimes surprised by the lack of morals and ethics by the self-identified 'christian' candidates. Don't be. They are on a crusade. Methods and tactics do not matter in their 'holy' quest, only winning counts--by any means necessary.



OUTRAGEOUS AND UNTRUE ARTICLE IN NCTIMES, DAYS BEFORE ELECTION

A week before the election the anti’s will come up with some incredible, outrageous, even paranoid and always false set of charges that they will take to the NCTimes and demand an article be written.

This article will appear the Wednesday or Thursday before the election. The false charges and the article of lies have appeared in every election cycle since 1994.

They always do it. Expect it again. The NCTimes always goes along with this carefully planned campaign tactic that our “anti” friends use election after election. No retraction or correction are ever printed until the election is over.

SLANDER MAILER

On Saturday before the election a four page, very expensive multicolor circular will come to every registered voter in VUSD with outrageous lies about the VTA and the VTA endorsed candidates. These lies will be slanderous. They will be easily disproved. However the NCTimes will refuse to run an article about the lies in the circular until at least Wednesday following the election. Or the editor may refuse to run an article at all. However, if the VTA makes any mistakes in any flier, the lovely editors at the NCTimes will published an outraged editorial that very day.

Something the NCTimes never asks of the anti folks is where their vast sums of money to pay for the production and mailing of such a flier come from. After the election we find out in the election records that the money always comes from outside our district. Last time a developer who wanted to put up ticky tacky apartments and houses on the new high school site paid.


There are other outsiders who hate the middle class, hate unions, hate benefits for workers and who are extremely wealthy. They have in the past been willing to donate vast sums to the anti-group campaigns.

The anti group usually howls that the VTA and CTA are spending thousands of dollars to defeat their candidates but no one ever complains about their outside money. They always have as much or more money to spend than the pro-public education group.

ROBO PHONE HARRASSMENT

All voters in VUSD will receive numerous calls from the robo-phone (said to have been bought by Darrel Issa). These phone messages will be nasty and less and less true as the election nears.

In the past those people on the side of district students and teachers and who were especially effective at countering the slander and slime of the “anti” group would get dozens of robo calls--enough to be considered harassment by any impartial observer. However, no article about the harassment has ever been published in the NCTimes.

I expect that VTA leadership and our endorsed candidates will again be harassed daily by these robo phone calls as the election nears. No one should be surprised.