Cotati-Rohnert Park school board race heats up

A race for three open seats on the Cotati-Rohnert Park school board has grown heated as the Nov. 4 election nears, highlighting a divide between three candidates who see themselves as part of a new guard that is moving the once-beleaguered district in a positive direction, and 20-year veteran Leff Brown and his supporters, who say he adds valuable experience and a rare independent voice to the five-person board.

And the candidates aren’t the only ones creating the heat. A Committee to Defeat Leff Brown has sprung up, circulating a flier that opposes him and promotes his opponents: incumbents Mark Orloff and Andrew Longmire and challenger Tracy Farrell. Meanwhile, the teachers union, fellow school board member Ed Gilardi and a group of parents have come to Brown’s defense and decried what they see as negative campaigning against the candidate. The parents group has gone so far as to take out an ad against Orloff.

The race comes at a time when many say the school board is beginning a slow recovery from a dismal period of plummeting enrollment, school closures and a near-takeover by the state. Important issues will be at stake in the coming years, such as a possible pay increase for teachers following cuts during the recession, the continued expansion of schools and programs, the handling of the district’s charter schools and the spending of the $80 million bond measure that voters approved in June.

Orloff, Longmire and Farrell, all relative newcomers, take issue with board members’ performance during the years surrounding the recession, including that of Brown, who has served 20 of the last 24 years. They point to the closure of four schools, the near-layoffs of more than 50 teachers and declining enrollment as things that could have been better handled or completely avoided.

Brown contends that these things were unfortunate but necessary factors of the recession, when many area families lost their jobs, moved away and took their children with them. Closing schools cost administrative positions but allowed the district to save teacher jobs, he said. He added that he contributes important financial know-how gained from years working as a senior financial analyst for Hewlett-Packard, rebuilding the local Chamber of Commerce and working as an administrative services officer in the city’s fire department, his current job.

“I continue to make hard decisions and question all the superintendents,” he said. “I haven’t always been the ‘yes’ vote, and I’m probably not the most popular person based on that, but someone has to ask the tough questions.”

Farrell, running for the first time, acknowledged that she’d like to take Brown’s seat on the board. “I think he’s done a great service to the community, but I think it’s time for him to retire,” she said. “I think it’s time for new blood, for people who are new parents.”

The mother of three children, ages 3 to 7, says her experience with the district began several years ago when she was looking for a year-round school for her daughter. The district didn’t provide that option, so her family considered leaving the district. But then the district recruited her to join a focus group on how to keep families in the district, and shortly after, a year-round program was created at Evergreen Elementary. After that, she got involved with the schools as a substitute teacher and PTA member. She says that she’ll add valuable perspective to the five-person board as a young mother whose children will be in the district for years to come.

Orloff and Longmire are both running for re-election after serving their first terms. They say their presence on the board helped turn the district around.

“We’ve been running a mile a minute trying to improve our brand, and I think we’ve been successful,” said Orloff, current board president and a claims director at Fireman’s Fund insurance. “Now, we have to continue along these lines.”

He said he ran on a platform of restoring closed schools and accomplished that in his first term with the opening of University Elementary at La Fiesta and Technology Middle School. He added that he is closely tied to the district through his active involvement in youth sports and his six children, three of whom are still in Rohnert Park schools.

Longmire said he is running to continue what he started four years ago. “When I came to the board it was trying times,” he said. “I don’t think the previous board or supervisor had the vision that they could do things differently, and (as a result) so many kids had run away from the district. When you find out these things, you want to do something about them.”

Longmire, retired from Optical Coating Laboratory, says he is also deeply involved with youth through his time as president of Rohnert Park Soccer Club and his three children, ages 16 to 26.

But the debate has extended beyond the candidates. A group of parents and the teachers union has decried the Committee to Defeat Leff Brown as well as a robocall critiquing Brown’s use of district health benefits, saying it’s a disturbing repeat of a successful 2012 campaign to defeat then-incumbent Karyn Pulley using techniques including anonymous robocalls. They ?also point to a recent candidates forum, where ?they say Brown was the subject of a “coordinated attack” by the other candidates.

Orloff, meanwhile, said he has been the subject of unfair attacks by the same parent group defending Brown. That group, Parents Advocating for Stronger Schools, recently ran a large advertisement in the Community Voice newspaper. It critiques statements Orloff made during the campaign - often inaccurately, Orloff said.

Susan Adams, treasurer of the Committee to Defeat Leff Brown, the voice on the robocall criticizing his use of school district benefits and a longtime political figure in Rohnert Park, said the mailer and robocall pointed out real problems with Brown’s performance and voting record.

“It’s not a hit piece; it’s a fact sheet,” she said of the mailer.

She said she got involved with the school board race because she has three children in the district and was concerned about the direction the district was headed under Brown and others. Adams said she was not involved in the 2012 robocalls against Pulley but acknowledged that she is glad to see Pulley off the board.

Brown and his defenders contest her description of the mailer as a “fact sheet,” calling many of the statements deliberately misleading. As an example, they point to a statement that says Brown voted to close four neighborhood schools. The statement, they say, should have explained that Brown wasn’t the only one to do so: At the time, the board voted unanimously to close the schools.

Orloff and Brown said they had no prior knowledge of the ads and fliers about their opponents.

Credo Charter School parent Tim Nonn, a member of Parents Advocating for Stronger Schools, said the group is made up of a handful of parents from different schools concerned about what they perceive as negative campaigning in general. The goal of their advertisement, he said, was to critique misstatements made by Orloff during the campaign. They focused on Orloff because of his role as head of the board, Nonn said. He said it was wrong to draw a comparison between the mailer opposing Brown and his group’s advertisement.

“The facts in our ad are easily checked. You can’t dispute those facts,” he said. Orloff, however, took issue with some of the ads assertions, such as one that said enrollment had continued to decline. Currently, enrollment is up about 115 students over last October, he said.

The teachers union, the Rohnert Park Cotati Educators Association, also endorsed Brown over all the other candidates, a switch from four years ago when it endorsed Orloff and Longmire. Brown displayed the most knowledge during extensive interviews held with each candidate, said Maha Gregoretti, president of the union.

She said the union is concerned about a top-down approach by the district staff and school board that has left teachers feeling like they don’t have feedback on changes that impact their working conditions. Brown provides a valuable dissenting voice, she said.

The campaigning has left a bad taste in many parents’ mouths, Nonn said, adding that regardless of the election’s outcome, his group plans to ask candidates to agree to a more civil election in 2016.

Staff Writer Jamie Hansen blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach her at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.