Have you ever heard the saying “free isn’t free”? Orange Unified School District Board of Education trustees Andrea Yamasaki, Sarah Pelly, Stephen Glass and Kris Erickson may have just answered that question.
According to mandatory filings recently released, each of the incumbents simultaneously received $2,195.73 from the powerful Orange Unified Education Association teachers union – pushing the liberal activist slate’s campaign war chest to nearly $93,000.
In Stephen Glass’s case, the union’s campaign contribution represents almost 60% of his entire war chest.
Is this a quid pro quo? Or perhaps paying for the price of a coordinated slate mailer (which is illegal under state law, by the way).
Whatever it is, it’s emblematic of the lack of transparency which has increasingly become a hallmark of their time in office.
The relationship between the Board and the OUEA is so tight that Trustee Ana Page was having an extra-marital affair the OUEA President Greg Goodlander (also married) while the district and the union were negotiating the contract and its 10% pay increase. Page and Goodlander subsequently left their spouses and married each other.
An Orange Unified Trustee and a Union President Negotiated Massive Pay Raises—Then Married Each Other. Where’s the Investigation?
The interests of Yamasaki, Pelly, Glass and Erickson are closely aligned. The union wants to extract maximal compensation from the district, and these four trustees – along with their colleagues – have proven themselves amenable to that. And having a Board of Education stacked with union-endorsed trustees certainly puts district negotiators at a political disadvantage during contract negotiations with their OUEA counterparts.
That much was clear when Yamasaki, Pelly, Glass and Erickson voted for a large, budget-straining union contract following the union’s successful recall the previous conservative leadership.
The OUEA – like it’s parent union, the National Education Association – supports the the use of racial considerations in hiring and promotion – a position that is massively unpopular among Americans. It supports teachers’ strikes – which divide communities and disrupt the ability of students to learn. It celebrates the socialist origins of May Day.
Do Yamasaki, Pelly, Glass and Erickson agree with those and other political positions taken by the OUEA?
These are all questions worth asking and answering.
