By Rufus Baker Santa Monica
Is Santa Monica-Malibu school board member Emily Bloomfield fit to serve the second term she’s seeking in the Nov. 8 election?
The seven members of the school board decide key issues about our schools and negotiate the pay and benefit contracts for all district personnel.
Is it proper for a school board member to steadfastly refuse to speak or communicate with any district teacher, any district teachers union representative, any district voter?
I have taught at 16 SMMUSD schools during the past decade of full time employment. I am the senior representative for the largest single unit of the local teachers’ association, and have been a district resident since the 1950s, and active in Westside political and civic organizations.
As a member of a Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR), this writer attended the August SMRR endorsing convention and was the only SMMUSD teacher and SMMCTA union rep present and voting. More than two dozen municipal elected officials and candidates at the SMRR convention spoke with me, but curiously, Emily Bloomfield refused to do so.
Letters that I subsequently mailed in August and September to Bloomfield’s school board office and campaign address, as listed on her literature, requesting the courtesy of a reply, have gone unanswered.
Does a candidate such as Bloomfield, who ignores any school district stakeholder deserve to be returned to another term in office?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 27, 2006. Read the original PDF.