Who will run?

As of this morning, Monday August 2, at 7:30am, there is only one person who has pulled papers for VUSD school board. That person is incumbent Jim Gibson. So far he has not filed (returned) the papers to the County Registrar of Voters. But no one doubts that he will. We know he can't pass up the chance for getting his name in the paper. Like many former members of the Republican Central Committee, he has long harbored dreams of personal glory at the ballot box.

There are two positions available on the board in this election cycle. Incumbent Carol Herrera's position is the other one. So far she has not pulled papers. It would be a real shame for the children of our district if she did not. We know her long record of selfless work for the children of VUSD--the reading programs, community outreach, and especially her single minded determination to get desperately needed new schools built including our new high school.

You have seen all the new schools around our fine district, right? The person most responsible for them being there is Carol Herrera. She is the person who spearheaded the successful bond election for Prop O that funded the building of those schools. After three previous VUSD school bond failures, Carol had no easy task. Getting a fourth school bond passed seemed an exercise in futility but it was not. She organized it and got it done.

In addition while she has been on the school board she has focused laser like on the most important role of a school board member--the education of our children. She always puts our kids first. They are real people to her. She takes the job of making their education the best possible as her number one priority. Contrast her commitment to our kids to Jim Gibson's goals. He only sees our children as props that can be conveniently used to further his quest for political and personal glory.

If both Jim Gibson and Carol Herrera file papers with the Registrar, then the filing deadline is August 6. There can be no additional candidates (except write ins) other after August 6. However if Carol has grown tired of the travails of being a school board member and does not decide to run again, the deadline will be extended one week to August 13th. For some reason the law extends the filing deadline one extra week if all the incumbents do not file to run again.

We know Jim will run. Dr. Stephen Guffanti, who so damaged our school district, has told Stacy Brandt that he will not run, but from hard experience we know a Guffanti promise is not worth much.

We do know that Jim is an organizer. He has someone waiting in the wings. If not Guffanti then he has charmed and deceived someone into believing the famous Gibson fantasies of evil teachers who do not want to work, need to be fired, and spend their time picking on Gibson's favorite hero, himself. He has used these made up tales to motivate someone to enter the race. No one will know who until the very last hour of the last filing day.

In the past, the Gibson dupe has always been counseled to file in this last hour of the last day that filing is permitted. The dupe is found waiting in the parking lot of the Registrar's office until minutes before the filing period ends. Then the Gibon Group acts and gets dupe into the Registrar's office. The candidacy papers are pulled and filed in a matter of minutes. We expect the same this year.

At the training for extremist board members conducted in the early 1990's done at a 'church' in El Cajon, the late filing strategy was a key part of the overall grand 'stealth' campaign strategy. The extremist strategy was to keep their candidates as hidden as possible from the public. The less time the public and the media had to find out about their candidates and their candidates views the better.

As you may recall from previous elections, the Gibson/Guffanti group's candidates try to avoid public forums. They attend as few as possible. The candidates on the extremist slate are given short, simple, meaningless; but kind of generically good sounding phrases about the importance of education and reading. The extremists repeat the phrases over and over with little or no variation. What they never do is fully answer questions or tell their philosophy for public education. That is verboten. Their rule is 'Never never let folks know who you are or what you really think.' The extremists realize that if the public truly knew them and their views, that they would never get any votes.

I know this grand strategy of stealth, deception and out right hiding sounds like just the opposite of real democracy, but that's what they use. This grand strategy has worked in the past. The extremists took over our board with in 1992. Even after the recall, Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti have been elected several times. These folks stick with what works.

So the question remains, who will run? Who has the courage to face the dirty tricks and the campaign of defamation that Jim Gibson will throw at any challenger who puts our kids first. Will the children of VUSD have a champion who is willing to put up with the dirt to try to improve their futures? Or will Jim be successful in getting not only himself but the crucial second vote against the betterment of our children's futures on our school board again.

With Jim alone on the board in the last two years, he still can grandstand and get quotes in the North County Times after each board meeting; but he is powerless to damage our children's future. However, as we so bitterly found out, when Jim and his extremists have two seats, on our school board, they can thwart the will of the people and waste taxpayer money by the boat load.

Never forget that two selfish men, Gibson and Guffanti, cost this district nearly fifty million dollars by delaying the third high school start of construction by nearly five years. We can never let that happen again. It will take years for our district to recover from this financial catastrophe those two despicable men inflicted.

So who is out there with the courage to face the Gibson slime machine for the good of this district and its children? "The world waits"