Thank You Mr. Neal Kleiner

The 11:10 PM election night update showed Dr. Richard Vladovich with an over 600 vote lead over Mr. Neal Kleiner.

I want to thank Mr. Kleiner for running against Dr. Vladovich. As I wrote in earlier pieces, I believed both gentlemen were qualified to take the 7th area seat on the Board of Education, so I truly hope the school children will win in the end.

Mr. Kleiner ran a reasonable, realistic, responsible and respectful campaign that I was proud to support, and even though it was not looking good as far as the chances of overtaking Dr. Vladovich's lead, I congratulate Mr. Kleiner on keeping his principles to the highest standards.

I think the most disturbing thing we are going to learn from the campaigns of both gentlemen is how low the turnout for this election was. I am so very sorry that more parents and concerned citizens wouldn't take the opportunity to support either candidate with their campaigns. We all lose when not enough concerned folks can't take the few minutes to either mark and mail their absentee ballots or take the extremely few minutes to stop by a polling place and cast their vote.

Out kids and our community deserve the slight number of minutes it takes to help build a better educational system. Our tax dollars are not enough to overcome what seems to be a growing amount of apathy in many communities that find not enough reasons to take the very short time it took Terri and I to cast our ballots.

Both Dr. Vladovich and Mr. Kleiner opposed any school being built at the Ponte Vista site and I thank both of these men for their stance on that issue.

It appears from the election results I have seen so far that we all should support Dr. Vladovich and request that he looks toward any one of three sites in Harbor City and Harbor Gateway to place SRHS #14. I think both men know it will be better for everyone to build a new school to ease the overcrowding of Narbonne High School not only closer to that campus, but in an area where a great number of the students actually live.

I think Dr. Vladovich and Mr. Kleiner can help all of us out in real discussions about SRHS #15. I have shared my thoughts on that proposed campus on this blog and mentioned several times Mr. Kleiner's belief that a 9th grade campus is what he envisions at the Fort MacArthur site.

There will be a school board meeting on May 22 where a vote will be taken by the members of the Board of Education, one member most likely being Dr. Vladovich, where the two schools projects, currently proposed will be voted on and whether they go forward or back to the drawing boards will be determined.

By 11:30 PM the vote tally showed Dr. Vladovich leading by 804 votes. Congratulations to Dr. Vladovich and good luck in your new position.

I know Dr. Vladovich can count on support from many of us, including me, who voted for Mr. Kleiner and know that the school children are the most important people in this election.

Now that the election is over we can continue with other important issues in OUR community and see if we can't get OUR community less fractured.

As long as the school children win, that is the most important thing to me. To both of the campaigns I say, "Well done" and thank you for all of your hard work.