A new definition of "speed bump"
No, I didn't vote for Paul Vincent Availa. Whoops, excuse me - the fighting Red Lion:
A spate of bizarre e-mail messages from one failed City Council candidate to another has led to ruffled feathers in the aftermath of this city's recent elections.
The messages from Paul Vincent Avila, who is a member of the Ontario-Montclair School District's board of education, went to Gabe Chavez, a former planning commissioner who finished third out of seven council candidates in the Nov. 7 election.
In an e-mail sent to Chavez on Nov. 12, Avila basked in winning roughly 3,500 votes for council after spending only a few thousand dollars on his campaign, and noted Chavez's total was around 6,000, despite spending nearly $100,000 on his campaign.
"If you are considering running again with larger amount of monies to spend, tell your developers/benefactors that I will be there again to make sure your kind defective character does not represent this precious city," Avila wrote. In the same message, he also referred to Chavez as "specially challenged" and a "snake."...
The messages Avila sent to Chavez are in keeping with a series of e-mails he wrote in the weeks leading up to the election, many of which were also sent to Daily Bulletin reporters.
His messages are typically riddled with grammatical errors, grandiose statements and mystifying allusions, and are signed by "the fighting Red Lion."...
San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt said he was "appalled" by Avila's e-mails because Avila is a school board member responsible for overseeing the education of thousands of students.
"I feel it's important that the public know who is representing them as their school board member," Ovitt said. "I feel it's a travesty. We expect better from our elected officials."
Great. We have our own Steve Rocco. Not a good time for OMSD to have a board member who is missing marbles. Someone needs to tell the fighting Red Lion that enrollment is declining:
Concerns about declining enrollment have prompted one school board member to urge parents to attend a public forum tonight.
Ontario-Montclair School District has seen its enrollment dip by more than 2,000 students in the past three years, dropping below 25,000 for the current school year.
District administrators aren't sure of all the reasons for the drop, but some may be related to skyrocketing home prices in the area that have driven families to move elsewhere, Superintendent Sharon McGehee said.
Board member Debra Dorst-Porada said she believes there may be other reasons why students are leaving the district which will come out at the forum, a part of the district's strategic plan update process.
"Maybe people are putting their kids in private schools," she said. "If they are, I'd like to know, why are they? And what can we do as a school district to get them back?"
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps the cities in the OMSD area should make sure that residents have places to shop, and don't end up with car damage because of the speed bumps all over the place.
IMHO.
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