Faculty board elections don’t sometimes encourage the soiled play that’s develop into customary in politics. So shenanigans within the marketing campaign to symbolize Seattle Public Faculties are, maybe, a barometer of this yr’s excessive stakes.
That’s essentially the most charitable interpretation for a interval wherein the brand new Faculty Board must deal with main cash issues and rent a brand new superintendent undaunted by the district’s appreciable challenges.
However Laura Marie Rivera’s marketing campaign is pushing the bounds sufficient that it raises questions on her honesty, particularly since one of many new board’s most necessary jobs might be repairing damaged belief with Seattle households.
Towards that backdrop, The Seattle Instances endorsed incumbent Joe Mizrahi for the District 4 place, representing South Lake Union, Queen Anne and Fremont. He’d been appointed to a shortened time period final yr, and this newspaper’s editorial board beneficial voters return him to his seat.
In endorsing Mizrahi earlier than the first, we famous: “He has 4 opponents. Amongst them, Laura Marie Rivera is the strongest, and she or he clearly has a coronary heart for youths. However her views on fiscal stewardship will not be grounded in actuality.”
Rivera’s marketing campaign extracted the center sentence, slapped it onto a marketing campaign flyer and printed the newspaper’s title beneath. It conveniently elided the comment about her lack of practicality on cash issues and implied, inaccurately, that The Instances has endorsed her candidacy.
Is that this wordsmithing unlawful? No.
Is it disingenuous? Much less-than-forthright? Completely.
That’s a disgrace as a result of beforehand, Rivera did seem like a authentic contender. In her earlier race for a Faculty Board seat in 2021, she gained The Instances’ endorsement.
Her political advisor apologized and complained, considerably absurdly, that since Rivera did so poorly within the main, netting solely 17% of the vote, making a problem of her marketing campaign’s dishonesty “feels disproportionate.”
Properly, no. That is about integrity and whom voters can belief. Rivera is hardly the one politician responsible of such chicanery. Voters must be cautious and check The Times endorsements, somewhat than counting on marketing campaign literature claims.
Modeling the values and conduct we’d wish to encourage in college students is especially necessary within the context of a faculty board race. By that lens, Rivera now appears even much less just like the type of candidate we’d wish to see.
