George McKenna elected to school board

McKenna with supporters and media on Tuesday. Campaign Twitpic.

Retired school principal George McKenna won the vacant seat on the Los Angeles Unified school board in Tuesday's runoff, using his long name recognition and backing by UTLA to defeat Alex Johnson, the newcomer put up by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. This restores a majority of teachers union-backed members on the board. With nearly all of the votes counted, McKenna was leading by six points. Turnout was very low — under ten percent — despite the divisiveness of the campaign and a lot of spending, most of it by Johnson or so-called independent committees on his behalf. The special election fills the vacancy created by the death of Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte last December. McKenna will fill out the last ten months of LaMotte's term then probably run again.

“I feel so privileged to have earned the trust and confidence of District 1 voters to be their school board representative," said McKenna, who is 73. Howard Blume gives the politics in his LA Times story.