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.”
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