In his recent op-ed, “Why did outsiders spend $123K to buy the Carlsbad school board,” Scott Davison claims everyone detests special interests. I agree that oil companies and data centers are unpopular. But he loses me when he lumps our teachers, custodians, librarians and hardworking tradespeople in with “corrupt fat cats.”
I’ve never met a teacher with a private jet or a Ferrari, so his suggestion that unions are reaping personal profits on the scale of Jeff Bezos shows just how out of touch he is with our community.
Davison says “outsiders” are buying the Carlsbad school board for Michele Ward, Tracey Perrault and me. The same claim has appeared in text messages targeting my campaign, which conveniently don’t include the required “paid for by” disclosure.
Rather than hide behind a text blast, I’ve chosen to talk to the community directly.
Voters decide elections, so I’ve spent the last several months walking the neighborhoods I’m running to represent. Along the way, I’ve spoken with firefighters, local nurses and police officers who keep our schools and communities safe, all of them represented by unions.
And yes, teachers and tradespeople, too. Unions and their members are vital parts of our community, not villains to be demonized.
I’m proud to have their support.
A union is not a distant corporation. It is a group of employees, including many of our neighbors, who pool their dues to advocate for fair wages and improved working conditions. When the air conditioning shut down at Carlsbad High School, the teachers’ union advocated for safe learning conditions for teachers and students, and a classified employee, represented by LiUNA, fixed it.
Union members work side by side with the people they serve and engage in the practices that keep democracy alive: advocacy and representation. When the Carlsbad Unified Teachers Association or LiUNA votes to support a candidate, Carlsbad teachers and district employees engage in the democratic process.
Davison also inaccurately implies that the only support for Michele Ward, Tracey Perrault and me comes from this supposed “special interest.” But the county’s public campaign filing database clearly disproves his point. Our filings reveal broad support from friends, family, former classmates, co-workers and many of our Carlsbad neighbors.
This brings me to transparency. I’m proud of my endorsements, and you can find them all listed on my website and in my social media feed. Every ad supporting my candidacy has carried a clear “paid for by” disclosure. The campaign finance disclosures that Davison misrepresents show that nothing is being hidden and everything is being properly disclosed.
My opponent cannot say the same. His two endorsements, from the Republican Party and Carl DeMaio, are difficult to find because he doesn’t list them on social media or his own website. As mentioned previously, Area 5 voters have received multiple mass texts supporting his candidacy or decrying “special interest,” or both, with no indication of who is paying for them.
California campaign rules generally require a “paid for by” or “with” disclosure on mass political text messages. If Davison cares about transparency, he should ask who is behind those texts.
On Nov. 3, voters can choose candidates who are upfront and honest about their campaign support instead of ones who seem embarrassed by their own endorsements.
Chris Waidelich is running for Area 5 trustee on the Carlsbad Unified School District board.
Editor’s note: California law generally requires sponsor disclosures on campaign text advertisements sent using mass distribution technology. Disclosures may use “Paid for by” or “With,” and certain committees may link to the required information. Exceptions include texts sent individually without mass distribution technology. The Coast News has not determined whether the texts described in this commentary violated disclosure requirements.
1 comment
There’s a lot of misinformation in this op-ed (no wonder he refused to answer the reporter’s questions about his funding sources and pen his own spin piece). Let’s just take the top 3:
1. Chris says the unions funding his campaign are “our hardworking neighbors,” but not a single union from Carlsbad donated to his campaign. Instead, the money comes from unions in Sacramento ($10K), Long Beach ($35K), Riverside ($25K), Encinitas ($10K), San Diego ($25K), and most recently the $20K from “East County Citizens for Community Colleges, Yes on Measure G.” Not only are these not our neighbors, they’re not even our school district employees.
2. He claims he is transparent about ALL of his endorsements, but conveniently leaves out the radical left groups like “San Diego Families for Liberation,” who collaborated with him on a social media post and proudly advocate for “redistributing wealth” and “combating capitalism.” Odd that he left out that he might be a communist?
3. Finally, he demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge of campaign laws by claiming his opponent’s text messages don’t include the disclosures of who is paying for them. A candidate running his own campaign would know that this isn’t required when you send your own texts, but it is when someone else is paying for (and clearly running) your entire campaign. That’s why every one of Chris’ texts disclose the fake “Carlsbad Families Sponsored by Laborers and Teachers Unions” name (despite not being made up of any Carlsbad families).
Voters deserve to know the truth about what these outside unions want in exchange for funding (and apparently running) his entire campaign. But despite plenty of opportunities to be transparent, it appears voters aren’t going to get it from Chris Waidelich.