A tip came in Monday afternoon that Andrea Flores Shelton, formerly a deputy chief of staff for Supervisor George Shirakawa, would get the nod as Alum Rock school district’s new trustee. In the end, that’s exactly what happened.
Dozens of community members attended Monday’s special meeting to appoint a replacement for Darcie Green, who moved over to the county’s Board of Education last month. Attendees at Monday night’s meeting criticized the process as rushed and undemocratic, although some people did speak in favor of Flores Shelton’s credentials. Patricia Martinez-Roach was another candidate floated as a possible replacement for Green on the Alum Rock board, but she pulled out of contention in advance.
Karen Martinez, who defeated trustee Esau Herrera for the second trustee seat up for grabs in the last election, criticized the board Monday night for not delaying a decision until after her appointment next month. Her constituents, she said, were the ones being silenced.
Jaime Alvarado, of Somos Mayfair, said his coalition of opponents to the selection process will meet Tuesday afternoon to decide if petitions should be gathered to challenge Flores Shelton’s appointment. The cost of petition gathering and holding a special election for the board seat would be substantial.
“I think a lot of people saw her as a viable candidate, but I don’t know,” Alvarado said. “A lot of people thought it was decided up front.”
It’s hard not to laugh out loud at the arrogant pretensions of Barbara Marshman & Sharon Noguchi in the Merc recently & especially this morning about the events at the Alum Rock school board meeting on Monday.
Consider that in 2010 the Merc editorially endorsed the departing Alum Rock board member, Darcie Green, as the very best candidate in the entire county for election to any school board.
Consider that the Merc refused to criticize Green’s walking away from the Alum Rock board in the middle of her four-year term in 2012 to accept an appointment to fill a vacancy on the county school board.
And now consider the over-the-top “outrage” Marshman and Noguchi exhibit toward the existing, legally selected Alum Rock board for filling Green’s unfinished term. If the Marshman & Noguchi outrage were applied equally in other similar situations, their commitment to supremacy thinking would go unnoticed.
But somehow the thought of Latino community members engaging in ordinary political maneuvers seen every day in City Hall makes Marshman & Noguchi frothy with rage, and betray how they really feel about the diverse Hispanic American community.
Barbara…Sharon…take some deep breaths. It was your interfering in Alum Rock politics back in 2010 and your silence about a board member leaving her term early in 2012, that kicked off this entire kerfuffle.
One way or another, the East Side will provide new leaders and new ideas for governance…let them do it without your constant interference. Put your supremacy dreams aside.
Don’t let this go forward. Today, its good old boy politics as usual but tomorrow we can change it. This situation will affect students for a long time. As I talked with many in the local political clubs today and they will adamantly deny our conversations, this new appointment wasn’t expected even by some of our trusted political junkies. Does she even know what title I means? Two staffers in less than four months appointed from the soon to be ejected Supervisor Shirakawa office bleeds corruption people. I hope the people of our community recognize the disservice that is happening and petition for an election of a new candidate.
We’ve already got one lost soul from Shirakawa’s office on the school board, Mr. Quinteros, and we can’t afford another. I’m sure Flores may have qualified as a candidate in four years but shows no ounce of integrity, if she did, Flores could as easily rejected the appointment. This appointment was obviously fixed and probably in order to appease Flores for not sharing the true activities of Shirakawa’s wild parties. Folks, this was planned so why not make it right. Please petition the appointment and I’ll get you 500 signatures tonight. You’ve only got until 12/19 and gathering the 500 or signatures is a walk in the park. It’s just too bad that the $237,000 cost estimate for a re-election will have to be, but it’s a solid way to set an example for the Democratic Party process. I’m certain our democratic leaders wouldn’t want it any other way… Oh wait a minute, I take that back about my fellow Dems, they did say in the merc Monday they would stand by their man, Shirakawa.