Last night I was invited as a guest, in my capacity of being the Chair of the Candidate R&D Committee, to the Endorsement Meeting of the 54th Assembly District Central Committee.

While it is the Los Angeles County Party that actually endorses, the say of the local Central Committee has tremendous sway over any dispute that may arise.  

The 4th seat of the Long Beach Unified School District has two real good & passionate Republican candidates.   Both are former teachers who have gone on to administrative functions within their district.

Jon Meyer is the incumbent and spoke first.  He showed last night a depth of knowledge on the budgetary situation facing the district, where $56 million of money LBUSD was scheduled to receive from the state, will probably not be there.  He went on to say that means cuts will have to be made and new programs will have to be put on hold until the LBUSD is able to afford them.

The other Republican running for that seat is Karen Hilburn.  She is a former drama teacher who went on to be a director of various programs for at risk youth followed by some time as a principal.  Her main issue is the necessity of the programs for at risk youth, especially job training and trade school type programs for kids who will never go to college.  According to her last night these at risked youth account for most of the crime problems in Long Beach and these programs can help get them training so they will not turn to a life of crime.  She was unaware that the Democrat Party was already planning to target this seat as a pick up until after she filed who papers, figuring that this is a non-partisan seat.  Her main goal it seemed was raising this issue so that it will be looked at and addressed.  However, she is definitely in this race to win it by virtue of having Tracy Kittinger as her campaign manager.  Tracy has run campaigns for Jon Meyer, Doug Drummond, and Steve Kuykendall (1st time he was elected to the State Assembly).

Based on his knowledge of the budget situation, the fact that he has one union backed Democrat opposing him, (the aide to Linda Sanchez did not turn in enough valid signatures), and the fact that he is a Republican incumbent who is not under any cloud that rose up last night, the 54th Assembly District Central Committee voted 7-0 to recomend the endorsement of Jon Meyer, with the Chairman abstaining due to the fact that he ran the meeting and there was no tie-breaker needed.

The election will be April 8, 2008.  Below is an article on the union try at taking over the LBUSD, it is told from a decidely left wing viewpoint.  However, two members of the 54th AD Central Committee are members of TALB, one being a member of the leadership and related how the union President is trying to take over the board and replace the LBUSD Superintendent.  According to these two members, there are other issues of corruption surrounding the TALB President.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/442563/in_long_beach_california_jon_meyer.html