So when Ali opened a slate mailer titled \u201cCongresswoman Maxine Waters\u2019 Sample Ballot and Voter Recommendations,\u201d he couldn\u2019t believe her advice on Measure CPT.<\/p>\n
Vote \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given Waters\u2019 stature as a congressional representative for 35 years, Ali said, her slate mailers can swing outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it does carry weight,\u201d Ali said, and the thumbs-down recommendation \u201ccan literally cripple our ability to pass this bond.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ali was doubly surprised because the mailers went out to voters just a few weeks after Waters attended an unveiling ceremony<\/a> for the new Compton High School campus. Compton High alums and hip-hop heavyweights Kendrick Lamar and Dr. Dre joined the celebration, and the latter<\/a> was honored for his $10-million donation to the new performing arts center.<\/p>\n Lunch tables and a temporary cafeteria are set up outdoors at Dominguez High School because of a fire three years ago.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n A second district high school, Centennial, is being replaced with a modern campus, and district officials are hoping Measure CPT passes so Dominguez students aren\u2019t left behind, but also because the district\u2019s other schools would get multiple upgrades and repairs, from infrastructure to classrooms to athletic fields.<\/p>\n I met with Ali on Wednesday afternoon at Dominguez, along with Principal Caleb Oliver. The school turned 70 this year, and it shows. The grounds are scruffy, wiring and plumbing are outdated, the gymnasium air conditioning hasn\u2019t worked in years. To walk the campus is to step back in time \u2014 to the Eisenhower administration.<\/p>\n While we were talking, Oliver called out to a senior named Angelina Ramirez, referring to her as a superstar student. I asked Angelina what kind of upgrades the campus could use.<\/p>\n Dominguez High School Principal Caleb Oliver.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I like to use the cafeteria as an example,\u201d she said, pointing to where it used to be.<\/p>\n What happened to it?<\/p>\n \u201cIt burned down,\u201d she said. An electrical problem was the suspected cause, her principal added.<\/p>\n That was more than three years ago<\/a>, and since 2023, the cafeteria has been an outdoor plaza.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like that\u2019s affected students a lot,\u201d Angelina said.<\/p>\n The big question, of course, is why Waters\u2019 campaign committee \u2014 Citizens for Waters \u2014 recommended a no vote.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to tell you why it is that a rapper has written a $10-million check in support of Compton\u2019s students while a congresswoman has told them to go fly a kite. But I\u2019ve asked by phone, text and email, and I still don\u2019t have an answer.<\/p>\n After contacting Citizens for Waters, which referred me to the congresswoman, I called her office and emailed her press office, which sent me this response at 7:43 p.m. Thursday:<\/p>\n \u201cPer US House Ethics rules, we are unable to respond to your request.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what rules those are, but the rulebook needs some rewriting if a congresswoman can\u2019t answer a simple question about why her campaign mailer recommends a no vote on a school bond measure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have no idea, and we\u2019re baffled,\u201d Ali said. \u201cWho would oppose the construction of a new school in a community like Compton?\u201d<\/p>\n In the working-class community, the student population is roughly 84% Latino and 14% Black. <\/p>\n I suggested that Ali consider having students march over to Waters\u2019 district office and ask for an explanation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d rather have these children\u2019s butts in seats and learning,\u201d Ali said, adding that \u201cwe need … to continue driving up these test scores.\u201d<\/p>\n Compton school board candidate Tana McCoy talks to school board President Micah Ali about the mailer.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n It\u2019s not as if there is no reasonable opposition to Measure CPT. These kinds of bonds cost taxpayers real money over the course of many years, and CPT would add about $60 per $100,000 of assessed property to annual tax bills.<\/p>\n That would hit working folks and retirees with an added tax burden of between a few hundred and several hundred dollars a year. And taxpayers have been paying off two previous school improvement bond issues, one passed in 2015 and one in 2022.<\/p>\n In addition to the financial burden, according to district parent Anthonia Limon, who wrote the statement against CPT for the L.A. County sample ballot, safety issues have undermined community trust in district leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cInfrastructure alone does not create safe schools,\u201d Limon wrote.<\/p>\n If Waters has similar concerns, that would be one thing. But to my knowledge, and to Ali\u2019s, there has been no public explanation for recommending a no vote. And when you read the fine print on the slate mailer, which advises voters to \u201ctake Congresswoman Maxine Waters\u2019 recommendations with you to vote,\u201d it only raises more questions.<\/p>\n \u201cThis document was prepared by Citizens for Waters, not an official party organization. Appearance in this mailer does not necessarily imply endorsement of others appearing in this mailer nor does it imply endorsement of, or opposition to, any issues set forth in this mailer,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n Huh?<\/p>\n Are they endorsements or aren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n The Times reported in 2004<\/a> that the rep\u2019s daughter, Karen Waters, \u201chas charged candidates for spots on her mother\u2019s \u2018slate mailer,\u2019 a sample ballot that many voters in South Los Angeles use to guide their choices.\u201d Last year, the Waters campaign paid a $68,000 fine for campaign finance law violations<\/a> following a Federal Election Commission investigation that involved Citizens for Waters.<\/p>\n Rep. Maxine Waters\u2019 slate mailer.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Also in the fine print on the current mailer:<\/p>\n \u201cAppearance is paid for and authorized by each candidate and ballot measure which is designated by\u201d an asterisk.<\/p>\n So are these endorsements or paid advertisements? There\u2019s an asterisk on nearly every endorsement in the mailer, from city council to governor to judgeships to Measure CPT. The way I read this is that various parties paid for endorsements, but the mailer does not reveal who paid, or how much they ponied up. Such mailers, by the way, are not uncommon in California, according to election law experts.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is misleading for voters,\u201d said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school. Although he thinks the endorsements are a form of protected free speech, he said this \u201creflects a very deep problem in our elections with dark money, when we don\u2019t know where the money is coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday, I visited Tana McCoy, a Compton High grad and retired city employee who is running for Compton Unified school board. She showed me the slate mailer delivered to her home, but said she\u2019s going to vote yes on CPT despite Waters\u2019 recommendation.<\/p>\n \u201cChildren need to feel good about their environment, because that\u2019s all part of their mental health,\u201d McCoy said. <\/p>\n At Dominguez, where graduates have a 96% college acceptance rate, according to district officials, junior Zaiden Ross gave me a tour that included a stop at a gymnasium fountain that he said hasn\u2019t worked in years. Some fountains are dirty, he added, \u201cand some of the pipes on campus produce water that has, like, extremely high amounts of lead and magnesium.\u201d<\/p>\n Student Zaiden Ross demonstrates a nonworking sink in a bathroom on the campus of Dominguez High School in Compton.<\/p>\n (Eric Thayer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Zaiden took me to a classroom to show me water samples he\u2019s still testing. Then we visited the robotics classroom, where he turned on a faucet, and the flow was closer to the color of apple juice than water. The air conditioner was rattling, and teacher G.C. Esiobu, who runs the engineering and robotics club, said there had been an \u201cemergency\u201d fix for a busted system. Zaiden gave me a quick rundown of dated computers and other equipment students use to design drones and robots.<\/p>\n And yet despite all that, a display case was filled with trophies. At competitive meets, Esiobu said, \u201cwe have been winning with little or nothing.\u201d With equipment upgrades, she added, \u201cjust imagine the level we will go.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s still time, before Tuesday\u2019s election, for Waters to visit Dominguez High and maybe get a tour from Zaiden and Esiobu.<\/p>\n If she does, she might rethink that endorsement.<\/p>\n steve.lopez@latimes.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Compton Unified School Board President Micah Ali checked his mailbox last week, he was in for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[139347,2791,139351,139348,139354,26686,131,133,132,97878,139353,139352,139350,4486,1522,646,139349,72],"class_list":["post-337734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-ali","tag-campus","tag-compton-student","tag-cpt","tag-dominguez-student","tag-endorsement","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-mailer","tag-rep-maxine-waters","tag-school-bond","tag-slate-mailer","tag-vote","tag-voter","tag-water","tag-waters","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lunch](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1780071789_19_.jpeg\")
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