Everyone detests special interest groups trying to influence elections. Whether it’s oil companies, real estate developers or data centers, no one wants to elect someone who will turn around and send our hard-earned money to corrupt fat cats while the needs of our community are neglected.
That’s even more true in Carlsbad, which fought off the developer-funded Measure A in 2016 for the mall by Agua Hedionda and is now waking up to the reality that our local state legislators have sold out to developers as they force one prison-like apartment after another in our quaint, idyllic Village and Barrio.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, they’re now after our schools. A combination of Political Action Committees (PACs) from places like Long Beach and Sacramento has raised $123,000 and formed a special interest group they ironically named “Carlsbad Families for Strong Schools” to fund three candidates for the Carlsbad Unified School District board of trustees — Michele Ward, Tracey Perrault and Chris Waidelich.
Did even one “Carlsbad family” contribute to this PAC? It’s hard to say, since the money is all from outside labor and employee unions that don’t disclose their donors.
So why would outside unions spend $123,000 to elect three school board trustees in a small district? It isn’t about improving our declining math scores, but it is about math…and money.
The CUSD Board is poised to vote on a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) to give these union special interests a monopoly on school construction projects, excluding 90% of the local non-union construction workforce. Studies show a PLA will increase construction costs by over 30% and likely delay much-needed repairs and upgrades to our classrooms, performing arts center and athletics facilities.
The real goal of these special interests is to elect a board that will add the PLA to a new tax increase that CUSD is planning via a bond measure on your 2028 ballot. The last school bond in Carlsbad, Measure HH, barely made it halfway through the list of proposed projects before it ran out of money, even though it will be on your property tax bill until 2055. That was without a PLA in place.
If a PLA is attached to the 2028 bond measure, the district might as well cut the project list in half at the outset.
Carlsbad voters have generously supported school construction bonds because we want safe, modern classrooms and quality facilities for our children. We expect those dollars to be spent responsibly, with every available dollar going toward improving our schools. And we elect trustees to put students, parents, teachers, and taxpayers first. But with a PLA, every unnecessary dollar spent on artificially inflated labor costs is a dollar unavailable for classrooms.
For the first time in Carlsbad history, our school board elections aren’t about education. They’re about power, money, and control.
Labor union interests are spending big on Ward, Waidelich and Perrault because this political investment will produce an extraordinary return for organized labor. In Oceanside, a PLA is on the ballot with a sales tax increase, allowing voters to decide whether to add a PLA to all city construction projects and a tax to pay for it. Even the Union-Tribune Editorial Board opposed it.
In Carlsbad, the PLA isn’t on the ballot, but the trustees who will vote on it are.
Our school bond money belongs to the public, not to outside special interests from Long Beach or Sacramento.
And our school board belongs to Carlsbad families and taxpayers. This November, let’s send a message that Carlsbad’s children, schools, and taxpayers are not bargaining chips.
Our votes aren’t for sale. Our school board shouldn’t be either.
Scott Davison is a Carlsbad resident and the Executive Director of the Carlsbad Education Alliance, a local education advocacy organization committed to transparency, accountability and academic excellence. www.opencusd.org
