Saam's Student Council Ad
Last year Saam Alikhani was running for student council president at Dana Hills High. He graduated last month and is now running against Anna Bryson for the Capistrano School Board.
More surprising is that Saam is the candidate selected by Children First in its union-backed attempt to wrest control from the current reform majority on the Board.
Perhaps this is what CF meant when it promised a broad coalition among its candidates. Alikhani does have experience as the student representative to the Board last year.
Last month Children First appointed the 18-year-old to its advisory board to help devise strategy for the November 2 elections, citing his selection as Dolphin of the Year by his high school faculty and staff. He plans to attend UCI this fall in a political science/pre-law program.
Children First has announced four of its five candidates. Gary Pritchard (Aliso Viejo) and John Alpay (San Clemente) are its recall candidates against Mike Winsten and Ken Maddox. Lynn Hatton will oppose Dave Christensen for the Mission Viejo/RSM District. The next announcement will be an opponent for Trustee Addonizio in Area 6. All trustees are elected at-large by all voters in the Capistrano District. [View Blackboard Report]
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Leave it to “Children First” to set aside experience and values for the power agenda.
It looks to me as if “Children First” (the irony is not missed here) is simply looking to flood the ballot with candidates in the hopes they can slide through with even a small margin of favorable votes.
After attending a few CUSD meetings the past couple years, Saam clearly stood out as the most involved of all the student advisors the district has had recently. I certainly thought he would be a leader somewhere in the future, but this kind of caught me by surprise. People running for elected office at that age are not very typical because voters do value experience (although Obama showed America seemed to swipe experience under the rug for him).
Its going to be interesting what he reveals in his campaign about the board as he is the one that has worked with them and knows them the best. It was clear after a few meetings that he didn’t necessarily hold the same views as the reform group that had elected him as student advisor. I remember he was stating his opinion that more school bus routes should be cancelled on high school routes and contracted out to the OCTA as “School Trippers” to save money. Dana Hills had a school tripper route and he showed the cost savings for the route. He had powerpoints and charts of how other school district had saved money eliminating bus drivers and bus maintenance on the high school routes by contracting with the local public bus agency. Ellen Addonizio was getting frustrated because she must have had an appointment later in the evening and about three minutes into the time he was talking exclaims in the microphone, “Have him sit down already, I don’t have time to keep worry about buses!!!” The board seemed annoyed with Alikhani because he was one of the most active student advisors to date and he almost never missed meetings.
Alikhani did not support permanent teacher pay cuts. He was the only vote against a permanent pay cut and recommended the board look into a temporary pay cut in which he once again showed up with powerpoints and charts of how most other school districts were adopting temporary pay cuts for teachers (like SVUSD did). I didn’t agree with everything he said, but I was impressed that an 18 year old who showed more poise than some of the current members slouching in their seats, chewing gum, and raising their voices at times (again, SOME of the current members, not all do that).
I would not want an emotional voter though. He often brought up the sentiments of the student body at Dana Hills and how “the student body feels for the teachers and supports temporary cuts.” At his age, “emotions” aren’t always right for a district this big and messed up. The job of a student advisor though probably did involve showing how the student population felt about issues since that was who he represented. Alikhani seems to be very popular in the region that stretches from Capo beach to Dana Point to southern Laguna Niguel (also one of the areas that seems to have high support for the recall). He is well known in that part of the district and was actually very popular in their community.
He sets a shining example for his peers. UCI plus the snakepit of local politics! He will get schooled, but I am rooting for him. He went to public school. And probably has immigrant parents. My kind of good citizen.
So does one have to have “immigrant” parents to be a “good citizen”, and what does “immigrant” mean, aren’t we all descendant from some form of migration?
Merriam Webster defines immigrant as:
One who immigrates as a person who comes to another country to take up permanent residence.
And yes, we are all a descendant of some form of migration, but not everyone is the son or daughter of parents who were immigrants. Being the great-great-great-great grandson of an immigrant is a different experience than being the direct son or daughter of immigrants.
–And I also don’t think a person needs to have parents that are immigrants to be a good citizen. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are good citizens that are immigrants or native born as well has bad citizens that are immigrants or native born. It depends on the person.
This school district is dysfunctional. I’m going to vote for the wet-behind-the-ears kid. I can’t imagine he’d do a worse job than any of the others on the board.
The legal immigrants I’m acquainted with are very involved, ambitious, and care about the particular qualities of freedom, more than many natural born who may take it all for granted. And yes, the experience is much different, especially if you have brown skin. No doubt, it’s the truth.
Maybe this is his way of getting a “pre-job interview”. I hear superintendents make a lot of money and he could earn over $100,000.00 a year in retirement benefits in 20 years. Or maybe he is interested in working for one of the dozens of teachers’ unions here in California. He is a go-getter!
“And yes, the experience is much different, especially if you have brown skin. No doubt, it’s the truth.” – Hans Duncan
I’m trying to wrap my head around this one Hans. What exactly is Hans inferring here? What “experience” is different, and how is it different?
Saam Alikhani aside, I’d like to see the proof from the Dispatch for this statment: “Children First in its union-backed attempt to wrest control from the current reform majority on the Board….”
[Editor's Note: First, attached is a page from the Teachers Union website displaying the Recall 2010 and Children First logos to demonstrate its backing. Those logos link Union members to the respective PAC websites. That is visible proof by itself, but second, the OC Register (Martindale) reported last week that Children First would not preclude the acceptance of direct Union campaign contributions. Third, neither Children First nor the Union deny their common desire to wrest control from the current board majority.]