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Two candidates seeking a spot on the Mountain View Whisman School District board of trustees this November — Devon Conley and Tamara Patterson — ramped up campaign spending in the weeks before the election, shooting ahead of the two incumbents.
The latest campaign finance filings, covering Sept. 23 through Oct. 20, show that Conley has raised a total of $17,985 in her bid for the school board, significantly higher than Patterson, who reported raising $4,900 so far this year.
Trailing well behind is incumbent Ellen Wheeler, who is seeking her fifth straight term and typically runs low-cost campaigns. She filed forms saying she has raised and spent less than $2,000, so her campaign isn’t required to file detailed reports. Incumbent Greg Coladonato did not file any campaign finance statements for the period. Earlier this year, he reported rolling over $3,550 from a previous campaign.
Conley’s campaign received a major boost from the political arm of the group Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE), a nonprofit spinoff of Teach for America, which provided a total of $12,950 to her campaign. The group is described as a nonpartisan organization that supports budding educators seeking public policy positions.
The group spent $182,575 this election cycle on school board candidates, both local and regional, including $36,000 for San Jose Unified school board candidate Jose Magana and $33,900 for East Side Union High School school board candidate Lorena Chavez.
Conley told the Voice that the group reached out to her as a Teach for America alum and encourages teachers like herself to run for public office. She said she appreciates the work LEE does — particularly assistance with the nuts and bolts of running a campaign — and said the group doesn’t expect her to reciprocate with any particular policy decisions. She said she was surprised by the amount LEE contributed, but noted that campaign costs stack up pretty fast.
“The bulk of the funding went to just trying to connect with voters,” she said. “It takes $10,000 to send out a mailer across the city.”
Other notable contributions in the report include $750 from the local electrical workers union, IBEW 332, $200 from Councilwoman Margaret Abe-Koga and $100 from City Council candidate Lucas Ramirez. She reported spending $14,473 of her campaign funds as of Oct. 20, with the vast majority going into digital campaign advertisements.
Patterson loaned her campaign committee a total of $4,900 since the start of the election and reported spending nearly all of it, $4,806, through Oct. 20. Most of the expenditures were for online campaign costs.
The latest round of election filings is an unusual change of pace for the district, which has typically had quiet school board races going back decades, occasionally with a thin field of candidates and limited campaign spending. District officials have sought to lower the bar for people seeking to run for public office by picking up the cost for filing fees and candidate statements.
If you were outraged by the firing of four principals and are dismayed by the poor academic achievements of the district, please vote for the challengers.
Vote Conley and Patterson!
Ms. Wheeler board member’s is not a life time position, it’s time to move on.
Vote For John Inks For City Council
because He Cares For Mountain View and
can possibly help with the School Board through the City Council.
Since the Voice has done all it can to damage John Inks, it’s only fair to post as many times as possible in order to advertise for a good, responsible person and candidate.
I like the idea of a balanced Council, with some conservative voice as well as liberal. I’m going with Hicks for that more conservative voice. IMO Inks has too many big developers waiting in the wings for some “Return on their investment”
His campaign contribution list exploded late with big developer money. This is a concern for me as a voter.
Only a small amount is from developers…the same amount for all the candidates, including Lenny Siegel.
What you are referring to are the funds from people who own property and want to protect their property rights. John Inks believes in the Constitution and that is why he stands up for civil and property rights and that is the reason I support John Inks for City Council.
Inks has support from the developer as well as the property owners who want to raze their two story buildings in order to build 5 stories. Those are the property owner rights Inks is fighting for.
As someone who believes in the Constitution, though, at least he won’t be behind Trump’s plan to simply executive order away a Constitutional Amendment, but that’s not really an issue at the local level.
No need to hijack the discussion here by bringing in Inks. The article relates to the MVWSD candidates.
Please do NOT reward incompetence by voting for any of the incumbents! Time for board members who respect our community and reward award-winning administrators instead of firing them and hiring from outside our community.
Since “Incumbent” or “Member of the Governing Board” as an occupation usually confers significant advantage in any political race, it is good that ‘the challengers’ are raising funds for getting information to the community. Incumbents already get a lot of ‘free press’. Some, like Wheeler, also use extensive listings, in official Minutes to show ‘what they are “doing for you” ‘. So Wheeler and Coladonado already have gotten their messages out (check their VOTES and their ‘quotables’ in MV Voice press coverage.
Why not just leave Wheeler and Coladonado in office? Perhaps issues like Bullis Mountain View (BMV as they now call themselves in this new public charter school effort) will really need new thinking, and not thinking from 4 or even 16 years ago! The ENORMOUS and extremely well researched and documented White-Hispanic Academic Achievement Gap in MVWSD will not just ‘go away’ with old style thinking.
Thank God (or the gods) for a competitive race, and intelligent and new-thinking competitors!
SN is a retired Member of the Governing Board of MVWSD
the cost of filing and candidate statement in MVWSD is $200
the cost of filing and candidate statement in MV-LA HSD is over $1200