Newsletter No. 85
- jeanadelsman4
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Unintended campaign smiles.
Which judges to vote for.
Smear update.
It’s time to take a break from all the negativity that voters tell me they are seeing on social media and in their mailboxes. Let me share the items that are making me smile, starting with . . . .
Team Torrance. That’s what Mayor George Chen is calling his slate for which his PAC is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors outside the City.
What made me smile? I got their first mailer and saw that Team Torrance is based in Orange County.
Michelle Brooks gave me my next grin.
She is running against Betty Lieu for the District 5 seat. Lieu is currently president of the Torrance Unified School Board. Her list of local associations and accomplishments is impressive.
Brooks’ pales by comparison because she just moved to Torrance three years ago so she is pushing that she was raised here and went to local schools. Her mailer mentions that she went to the non-existent South Hills High School. Clearly, she knows where she went to high school, but whoever did her mailer blew it.
She also antagonized Torrance police officers, who have endorsed Lieu, because her mailer shows a crudely created fake Torrance police badge that implies their support.
Mike Mauno doesn’t rate quite a grin given his outrageous behavior toward his opponent, District 3’s Asam Sheikh. (In case you have missed Mauno’s smear, go to www.TakeBackTorrance.com and click on Newsletters No. 82 and 84.)
But I had a bittersweet smile when a reader prompted me to visit his campaign website to see that he has removed his endorsement page, which had all of five people on it. He had a bizarre explanation: “I’m taking this step out of an abundance of caution to protect the safety and comfort of the good people in our community who have openly supported me.”
Someone told me that Chen has decided to distance himself from Mauno. Evidently, Chen – along with Treasurer Candidate Aurelio Mattucci and District 1’s Jon Kaji – had orchestrated the smear campaign, but realized that the truth had gotten out and that it could damage their own election chances. So, they have told Mauno to remove their visual presence from his site.
Unfortunately for them, the group mailers are printed and too far along in the distribution process to stop so Mauno will still be paired with them.
Kaji gets my biggest smile because his campaign is built on lies that he has neglected to keep track of.
The Big Lie: That he lives in Torrance whereas, in reality, his home is in Rancho Palos Verdes. At a March forum, all the candidates were asked how long they had lived in the city. Kaji answered five years – apparently, he forgot that he hadn’t rented a North Torrance home until four years earlier.
Then he and the other elected officials were asked to fill out a questionnaire for the announcer to read at the May 16 Armed Forces Day Parade. Second question: How long have you been a Torrance resident?
Kaji answered 18 years.
Video explaining real costs of Friendship Cities:
I start smiling whenever I see that David Kartsonis has posted a new video on some aspect of the City. They have been uniformly succinct and insightful. This last one is no exception: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XDDURgDW2n0.
Smear update:
At the May 5 Council meeting, Sheikh definitively put to rest the false accusations. He read an attorney’s statement that, among other things, said that John Fleming, the man whom Sheikh was accused of victimizing, was actually being abused by his daughter, Anita O’Brien.
Moments later, during Orals, O’Brien said she had flown in from South Carolina so that she could file her accusations against Sheikh with the Torrance Police Department. Evidently, she returned home without filing any complaints.
Someone may have pointed out that knowingly filing a false police report could result in criminal charges against her.
Which judges to vote for:
For many of us, picking which judges to vote for is the last category that gets filled in. Until this year, it was the category that gave me the most trouble. But thanks to Jacki Bacharach, executive director of the South Bay Cities Council of Governments, I now have Superior Court Judge Zeke Zeidler’s recommendations.
Zeidler first came on my radar screen more than 30 years ago when he was elected to the Redondo Beach Unified School Board. In 1998 he became a judge. When Bacharach shared his list, it came with his explanation of how he did his research and his thinking behind his choices. He reasoned that people who disagreed with his conclusions could vote for the other choices. He blessed my sharing this with my readers.
Below are his choices, but my limited tech skills won’t let me take his PDF and post it here. However, email me at jeanadelsman@yahoo.com, and I will forward you all his information.
Zeidler’s recs:
Judge 2: Tal K. Valbuena
Judge 14: Irene Lee
Judge 39: Binh Dang
Judge 60: Ann Maurer
Judge 64: Maria Ghobadi
Judge 65: Chellei Jimenez
Judge 66: Ben Forer
Judge 81: David Walgren
Judge 87: Anthony Bayne
Judge 116: Paul Thompson
Judge 131: Donna Tryfman
Judge 141: Mariela Torres
Judge 176: Gloria Marin
Judge 181: Ryan Dibble
Judge 196: Candice Henry
A ballot problem:
Thanks to Amy Josefek for sharing former Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s advisory:
“If you are planning to vote by mail, be aware that the post office is NOT postmarking ballots on election day, a change the Trump administration announced recently. If you drop your ballot in the mail on June 2, your ballot will probably NOT be counted. This is a change from previous years.
“I don't have faith in the postal service to get ballots postmarked immediately, so here are my suggestions:
“1. Use a county drop box. Put your ballot in the box before 8:00 p.m. on June 2nd, which is election day.
“2. Drop your ballot off at any polling place, during the early voting period or on election day before the polls close at 8:00 p.m.
“3. Have your ballot postmarked at the USPS counter on June 2. Be prepared for an April 15th type line.
“4. Mail at least 5 - 7 days before June 2, and if you do not get a notice from the county that your ballot has been received, go to any polling place in your county at any time during early voting, or on June 2nd, to vote a provisional ballot.”
How to watch the candidates:
Still undecided on the Council and mayoral candidates? Not too late to watch these forums:
The League of Women Voters’ Council candidates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BadT_y7rWY
The League of Women Voters’ mayor and treasurer candidates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DzrHZgJWEAQ
The Torrance Chamber of Commerce didn’t record its first forum for the Council district seats, but thanks to Chris Truman who recorded and posted its session with the mayoral and treasurer candidates: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5v5YiOAvE0E&ra=m
The North Torrance Neighborhood Assn.’s District 1 and 3 candidates forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etAn38SqV1c
North Torrance’s treasurer candidates forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfBfagbD7kA
North Torrance’s mayoral forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ulI6FB8MtA
The Riviera Homeowners Assn.-Seaside Neighborhood Assn. had a technical glitch at the very beginning, so viewers will miss Michelle Brooks and Betty Lieu’s two-minute introductory remarks. This forum featured the candidates for District 5, treasurer and mayor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soc7N2d3LBc
The West Torance HOA and Southwood HOA co-sponsored this session: https://www.youtube.com/live/lutSQpqNfDs
Local patriotism:
The City of Torrance has an America 250 podcast series. To hear former Council member Kurt Weideman share a wealth of Torrance history, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=c7b1qL_8V_Y&ra=m.
Pedaling on bike issues:
South Bay Bicycle Coalition is becoming more of a presence as residents increasingly see bicycles as a possible way to reduce auto traffic. The coalition sent a questionnaire to all the Council and mayoral candidates. Guess which ones gave thoughtful answers and which ones didn’t bother to respond?
If you answered that Sharon Kalani, Betty Lieu, Asam Sheikh and David Kartsonis responded, you get a gold star. If you said that George Chen, Michelle Brooks, Harry Ward, Mike Mauno and Jon Kaji blew them off, award yourself a second gold star.
To see the Coalition’s info:
Before I go:
The City’s deadline for correspondence to be included in the Council’s pre-meeting public supplemental is 5:30 p.m. the Monday before the meeting. The Council will receive anything that comes in later before the meeting, but it won’t be posted until Wednesday. It will be at the top of the agenda.
You can also leave voicemails to be included as Oral Communications in the supplemental. Call 310-618-2404 to leave up to a two-minute recording that will be transcribed. Voicemails have the same deadlines as the emails.
Want to tell the City Council your opinion on an agenda item or address any concerns? The City has changed how to have your comments appear in an agenda item’s Staff Report. You should use the OneMeeting Public Portal at https://torranceca.primegov.com/public/portal?fromiframe=true.
Jean Adelsman
Feel free to share this email -- or tell friends about www.TakeBackTorrance.com. And if you email a response to jeanadelsman@yahoo.com, please indicate whether you are expressing a thought for my eyes only or whether I may share your comments with the whole audience.
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