Election season has officially begun and races for local public office are now underway.<\/p>\n One such race is for three seats on the La Mesa Spring Valley School District (LMSVSD) board. And while not as headline grabbing as other local elections \u2014 such as the fight for the now legally embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter\u2019s Congressional seat \u2014 this school board election has a bit of drama of its own.<\/p>\n Three incumbent board members have decided not to run for their seats.<\/p>\n Bob Duff, who served on the board for 14 years, announced he was retiring earlier this year. Rebekah Basson, appointed to the board a year ago after Rick Winet vacated the position, is an expecting parent and decided to focus on her family. Board president David Chong, who served on the board for four years, announced he will not seek re-election earlier this month, citing a recent home purchase and move that puts him out of the district in December.<\/p>\n \u201cI am currently eligible to seek re-election and am eager to continue serving, but I feel it would be disingenuous to ask the public for their vote when I know I would have to resign due to residency shortly after being re-elected,\u201d Chong said.<\/p>\n The departure of Chong and Basson from the race was welcomed news to a local community group called the Action Community for Educators and Students (ACES). The group formed in the wake of disparaging statements made by Chong, a gun store owner, about student gun control activists from Parkland High School in Florida, following a mass shooting there.<\/p>\n On Aug. 19, the ACES group members met at Helix Brewing Co. to start organizing a campaign for a slate of candidates who will no longer face the incumbents the group initially formed to defeat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe circumstances changed a bit,\u201d said ACES member Emily Green. \u201cWe decided to just focus on putting out a positive message for the candidates that we did want to endorse.\u201d<\/p>\n Green said the candidates \u2014 Jerry Lecko, Charda Fontenot and Rebecca McRae \u2014 as well as all the ACES members met at LMSVSD meetings while protesting Chong\u2019s statements, as well as the appointment of Basson to the board, which ACES opposed because they claim she lacks experience. Basson had never served on a board, does not have children in the district and mostly attended private schools growing up.<\/p>\n The Basson appointment spurred Lecko to run for the board. This is his second campaign for school board. He briefly served on the board after being appointed there in 2013. Lecko said he lost his race to hold the seat in 2014 because he \u201cran afoul of the Republican Party.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I wouldn\u2019t lockstep with the Republicans in 2014, they decided not to endorse me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey put a target on my back and they wanted me off the board because they wanted to retain party control and it had nothing to do with the community.\u201d<\/p>\n Lecko \u2014 whose credentials, besides serving on the LMSVSD board, include stints as Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) president, chair of the district advisory council and chair of the Prop M citizen\u2019s bond oversight committee \u2014 believes Basson\u2019s appointment was a partisan political move to give a new face in the conservative movement some experience and exposure, while passing up much more qualified candidates for the position.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a slap in the face to the community, I believe, as well as a disappointment to the school district staff and parents,\u201d Lecko said. \u201cAnd the students didn\u2019t know it, but it was a slap in the face to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Lecko left the Republican Party two years ago and is now an Independent.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that the other side is automatically evil or the enemy does not sit well for me,\u201d he said, adding that leadership on both sides are guilty.<\/p>\n Although the ACES group\u2019s majority is progressive Democrat, Lecko said he believes they are open-minded enough to endorse a long time Republican like himself \u2014 a quality he wants to bring to the school board.<\/p>\n \u201cA good idea is a good idea,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t care whose mouth it comes out of or what side of the isle it comes from. It should be considered, it should be debated, it should be compromised so that the final outcome is a win-win that everybody can get behind.\u201d<\/p>\n To Lecko, a group like ACES is a sign that change can happen without party politics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an indication that the electorate wants to be informed,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople that have formed this grass-roots community parent-oriented group want to see some change in our school district.\u201d<\/p>\n Fellow candidate Charda Fontenot is optimistic about her chances of winning because of the support from the ACES group as well as the timing of the election.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a new superintendent, we have new leadership and so I think with that combination of those two things and the election happening, we will see some positive change,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Fontenot is a certified lactation educator and mother of two children attending Casa de Oro Elementary. She served on the PTA and District Advisory Council and said she was encouraged to run by teachers and has made supporting teachers part of her message.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, I don\u2019t think [the board members] are really listening to the teachers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to do better for the community. I want to involve parents in the decisions that are being made. I want to involve teachers involved in the decisions that are being made.\u201d<\/p>\n The third ACES slate candidate, Rebecca McRae, has also made parent and teacher involvement a focus of her campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that a district works best for everyone when the board can listen to all stakeholders. If we\u2019re not listening to all the stakeholders, then are we really providing what is best for all students?\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes the board will listen to the loud parents who are complaining about things, but I think that as board members we need to put ourselves out there and be comfortable talking to and listening to everyone in order to make the best decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n McRae is a teacher at Clay Elementary in the San Diego Unified School District, but has daughters attending school in the La Mesa Spring Valley district.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to make a change so our school board represents all of the community and not just part of the community,\u201d she continued. \u201cEducation is my passion \u2026 and it\u2019s important to me that my girls are going to a school where the school board has everybody\u2019s interests in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n McRae is also positive about her chances of winning, although she is aware of the historically dim chances candidates have of winning school board elections without the backing of the Republican Party.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be a self-fulfilling prophecy in East County where people just assume that everyone else around them is conservative or people just write it off like, \u2018It\u2019s East County, what else is new?\u2019 so nobody tries,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, I think since the 2016 election, people are more aware now about who is representing them, even down to the local level.\u201d<\/p>\n For the ACES candidates and organizers, Chong and Basson\u2019s departure from the race is only a partial relief.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we need to make sure we get the right people on the school board,\u201d Emily Green said. \u201cWe can\u2019t have more of the same. So even though we don\u2019t have the incumbents running, we have people that we have our doubts about.\u201d<\/p>\n The people that they have doubts about are a slate of candidates, including Steve Babbitt. He is a former LMSVSD board member and has also served on a myriad of other local education-related boards and committees, such as the Prop M Citizen\u2019s Bond Oversight Committee, La Mesa-Spring Valley Educational Foundation, Spring Valley Youth and Family Coalition, Spring Valley Sheriff\u2019s Community Advisory Board, and more.<\/p>\n Babbitt\u2019s slate includes Megan Epperson, who is a parent of LMSVSD students, and local businesswoman Brianna Garza. Babbitt has already racked up endorsements from local Republican elected officials such as Dianne Jacob, La Mesa Mayor Mark Arapostathis, and most of the current LMSVSD board members, including board president Chong.<\/p>\n For the ACES candidates, an endorsement from the teachers\u2019 union is \u201clikely,\u201d according to Green, making this race very similar to previous ones where union-backed candidates face off against an entrenched GOP establishment. However, there are signs that this race will be less acrimonious.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a win for the district no matter who gets elected,\u201d Babbitt said, referencing the qualifications of his opponents on the ACES slate. \u201cAlthough I do think I\u2019m the most qualified and experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n For more information about the candidates, visit lamesaspringvalleyaces.org,<\/a> facebook.com\/lmsv2018<\/a>, lecko2018.com<\/a>, babbittonboard.com<\/a>, chardafontenot2018.com<\/a> and Megan Epperson\u2019s Facebook page at bit.ly\/2BIG2ps<\/a>. A seventh candidate, middle school teacher Mathew Austin Sablove, is also running, according the official list of candidates filed with the San Diego Registrar of Voters but is not a part of a slate and does not yet have a campaign website.<\/p>\n![\"Grassroots](\"https:\/\/lamesacourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Lecko-fortenot.jpg\")
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