Rocco Recall Won't Make February Ballot...Or Any Other

I just received an e-mail update from the Greater Orange News Service that the effort to recall OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco (who represents OUSD Area 6) is sputtering to a halt and will fail to submit the necessary 15,000 signatures by September 20 to qualify it for the February 5, 2008 ballot.

I'm not surprised. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, this recall campaign has been absolutely invisible. Not only will they fail to make the deadline for the February 5 ballot, but I doubt it will ever qualify for any ballot.

Greater Orange News Service provides a pretty spot-on analysis of why that is:

Sources state that the organizers are disappointed in the Greater Orange Community for its failure to get behind the Rocco Recall. An analysis of the effort shows the Recall Organizers, made up of mostly close friends, neighbors and associates of the OUSD Trustees who make up the current Godley Majority failed to gather a broad community coalition to support the Rocco Recall effort. As one longtime OUSD Board watcher put it “the Recall looked like a personal thing by the Board members and Godley. Most people shrug off Rocco’s antics and don't view him as a threat”. Those sentiments also seem to reflect the non-committal attitude of the district’s teacher’s who for the most part in this recall effort stayed off in the sidelines. As one teacher representative to the teacher’s association Representative Council summed it up, “If Marty Jacobson [recalled former OUSD Trustee] was a lone lunatic he would never have been recalled. Rocco is one vote and doesn’t control a block of votes. Teacher’s see him as harmless in the bigger scheme of things.”

While Trustee Steve Rocco is famous for his quirky Partnership Theory and verbal clashes with other trustees that have bordered on going physical, he does have some “closet” admirers who wish he could articulate some of his views sans the conspiracy focus. His past diatribes have included (between the unrelated gibberish) stanch support for the Santiago Charter during the Revocation Attempt. He has been popularly “politically incorrect” about the standardized testing speaking out about the obvious racial divide between Asians and whites versus other minorities. He has advocated for more hands on classes at the high schools. Rocco has supported negotiated teacher and support staff wage increases while questioning automatic administration raises. He has opposed all types of wasteful spending like when former Villa Park High School Principal Ben Rich was made “co-principal” of Richland High School (since Rich quit OUSD that “co-principal” has not been replaced). He refuses to participate in non-public Closed Session for reasons of principle which have frustrated other OUSD Trustees to a point beyond reason. He has been a fierce critic of OUSD Superintendent Dr. Godley (often making personal attacks on him). Perhaps more importantly, the majority of the OUSD Trustees have not been able to control, quite, or contain him despite their best legal and procedural efforts. Now, they have failed to recall him.

You can read the rest of their analysis here.

So far, Rocco is facing one near-certain challenger in Arianna Barrios (a decline-to-state), and a maybe in the person of Florice Hoffman (a liberal Democrat who doesn't live in Area 6 and who would have to move to run).

I spoke with Arianna Barrios at length on the phone about two weeks ago. I'll post at more length about it soon, but I came away impressed by Ms. Barrios and wouldn't hesitate to vote for her in a head-to-head with Rocco.

Comments

[Rocco Rocks!]

Rocco will get re-elected so get used to it Orange parents. Anyone who gives one red cent to another campaign is wasting their money. How about a will Rocco get re-elected and by how much contest for an 8 ball or a coffee mug?

[OC Native]

Barrios is a Democrat and has been registered that way since at least 2000.

[Jubal]

She used to be a Democrat. She told me she was a DTS now.

[Bladerunner]

Bladerunner's Rule-- Recalls are almost always mulligans. Just win the damm election the first time around.