CARLSBAD — The races for three open seats on the Carlsbad Unified School District’s board of trustees have become contests between the haves and have-nots.
Each open seat on the five-member board has two candidates running, making all three races competitive.
The fundraising, though, has not been particularly close.
Publicly available campaign finance records through Oct. 17 show that the six candidates have raised a combined total of just over $125,000.
Three candidates running in different trustee areas — Michele Tsutagawa Ward, Tracey Perrault and Chris Waidelich — have raised more than 82% of that money. Each has raised more than $30,000.
Their opponents — Gretchen Vurbeff, Amber Martinez and Joel Gutierrez — have raised just under 18% of the total, according to the records.
A major source of the fundraising disparity is contributions from Carlsbad Families for Strong Schools, or CFSS, which has raised $107,000 from labor and teachers union political action committees. Contributions included $25,000 from Riverside-based Laborer’s Union Local 777 PAC, $12,000 from the Carlsbad Unified Teachers Association PAC and $25,000 from Covina-based Southern California District Council of Laborers PAC, according to reported filings.
Year to date, CFSS has contributed between $18,336 and $19,705 each to Ward, Perrault and Waidelich, according to the October filing.
The Coast News emailed each of the six candidates, the teachers union and CFSS for this story. Ward, Perrault and CFSS did not respond to requests for comment.
The Coast News also sent a series of questions to the Carlsbad Unified Teachers Association but received no response.
Waidelich said that instead of participating in an interview for this story, he preferred to submit an opinion piece rebutting one The Coast News published on Oct. 20.
The piece, “Why did outsiders spend $123K to buy the Carlsbad school board?” by Scott Davison, argued that labor unions might want a sympathetic school board ahead of an upcoming vote on a project labor agreement that could “give these unions special interests a monopoly on school construction projects.”
Martinez
Martinez told The Coast News it was frustrating to see labor money go to her opponent because her family had long supported labor unions through her father’s involvement in construction unions.
“To know that’s who’s against me, that sucks,” she said. “Its just a crazy amount of outside union contributions that don’t seem fair. It’s hard to compete. It makes it so ridiculously hard to get your voice in when they’re able to pound households with fliers, signs, text messages on a daily basis.”
The races are nonpartisan, but the three leading fundraisers are considered left-leaning or connected to the Democratic Party, while their opponents are considered right-leaning or connected to the Republican Party.
Martinez said the GOP has “really helped me” during the campaign.
“They turned out to be really cool and really nice so I just kept on going,” she said. “It’s not that I agree with every single thing Donald Trump is spewing out of his mouth.”
Martinez said she considers herself a moderate and a centrist. Accountability and standing up to bullies would be among her chief goals on the school board, she said.
“I will stand as tall and as firm as I can against anyone who is going to bully someone,” Martinez said. “I’m not a feelings person. Let’s make sure they understand what they did. They need to be held accountable when they’re at school.”
Martinez said she was driven to run after seeing a viral video of a young Black girl surrounded by white children, at least one of whom used a racial slur. The incident led to a contentious school board meeting.
“How is this kid getting a slap on the wrist when the little girl he bullied dropped out of the school?” Martinez said. “I felt like it was entrapment, he bullied her. I felt like it was a hate crime.”
Seeking a creative campaign strategy to offset the fundraising disparity, Martinez said she has turned to social media, drawing on a following she built by sharing videos of beach conditions in Carlsbad.
Martinez said her posts have drawn more than 50 million views, and she believes social media is a better way to reach voters than incessant mailers or text messages.
“Let’s see what happens,” she said.
Vurbeff
Vurbeff, the incumbent trustee for District 4, has raised more money this election cycle than in 2022 — $12,722 so far, compared with $10,952, according to the records.
Her opponent, however, has more than doubled her fundraising, from $15,095 in 2022 to $31,364 in 2026.
“Back in the day, people rarely even campaigned, they barely raised any money,” Vurbeff said.
She said she would not take money from special interest groups and described her fundraising as “grassroots.”
“Special interest groups have no interest in education,” Vurbeff said. “That should be very concerning to voters. I think Carlsbad is tired of being pushed around by Sacramento politicians.”
She raised concerns about labor unions seeking to influence construction contracts, saying “the PLA prevents competition.”
“There hasn’t been one superintendent of business services that’s supported this,” Vurbeff said. “I can’t get them to literally say it in a meeting right now, but basically they’ve said that.”
She said her association with the Republican Party hadn’t provided as much help as she expected from an organization with a built-in audience.
“They sent out one flier, put my name at the bottom and spelled my name wrong,” Vurbeff said. “They’ve literally been no help at all.”
Vurbeff said she hoped her record would speak for itself among voters interested in measurable outcomes, transparency and accountability. She pointed to a stricter cellphone policy as an effort she was proud to have championed.
“Students are more engaged and teachers are able to teach with less distractions,” Vurbeff said.
She said she enjoys receiving community feedback and visiting campuses to ensure schools are working well for everyone.
“I love to do site visits and all you have to do is look at my Instagram,” Vurbeff said. “I’m out there doing the work and making sure our schools are safe. I’m very much in favor of promoting school safety, not just physically, but emotionally.”
Gutierrez
Gutierrez told The Coast News his campaign sought to strike a more positive tone than his opponent’s.
“I believe that kids need to feel good about themselves in terms of how they’re performing. My opponent likes to scare people in terms of bullying and what’s going on,” he said. “I think they’re just trying to scare people. I don’t want to run on fear and divisiveness, I think Carlsbad’s better than that.”
He described his fundraising as a grassroots effort supported by friends, supporters and members of the Navy community nationwide.
He said he has no issue with unions and, as an airline pilot, is accustomed to belonging to one.
“I’m intimately familiar with where union money can and should go,” Gutierrez said.
He also raised the project labor agreement issue, saying that while “everyone likes to demonize that large sum of money,” the funds themselves were not the main issue.
“What’s the return on investment on that?” Gutierrez asked.
Gutierrez said his goals on the school board would include ensuring students receive all available funding, particularly for the arts.
“I believe in the arts and I want to make sure those things are funded,” Gutierrez said.
Other policies he hopes to support include safer transportation to school, including by bike or bus. He said his experience navigating complex systems would help him guide discussions and get all parties on board.
“If I didn’t think I couldn’t make a difference, I wouldn’t do it,” Gutierrez said. “I’m running because I’m a pretty realistic person who can find a solution that doesn’t get bogged down in the weeds of my own ideology, because that’s not going to get things fixed.”
