NEWS
OCTOBER 29, 2010
SIGNAL TRIBUNE
Hoping to unseat Furutani for Assembly’s 55th District, Salabaj pushes for education reform
make sense to me that someone would offer a bill that would do away with a class that could help rid the nation of that epidemic,” he said. “The bill was obviously a favor to the unions, but it was not even passed by the Assembly.” Salabaj added that Governor Schwarzenegger recently vetoed another bill authored by Furutani that would have replaced many foreign-language and fine-arts classes in the public schools with tradeschool classes. “So once again, during this severe budget crisis, he is hammering away trying to get this thing passed for a special-interest group,” Salabaj said. “My first priority is job creation,” he said. “We have to create jobs in California, and I am very interested in creating jobs in my district. We have such a great location to bring in companies and small businesses that can offer jobs to our residents, and we are not taking advantage of that.” “My second priority is our schools,” he said. “Our state has to go through major educational reform. The first thing is our relationship with the schoolteachers. In order to be successful, school districts have to be like small communities that govern themselves. School districts like LAUSD are just too spread out to be run the right way. The state needs to step in and break up the huge school dis-
tricts to give more power to the parents and the teachers. That’s the only way the schools are going to be run in the right way.” Salabaj also said that as a state legislator he would look into how school districts, colleges and universities purchase books. “The way that we purchase our books is statemandated and questionable,” he said. “It basically opens the door for corruption.” He explained that he suspects that taxpayers are footing the bill for exorbitantly overpriced textbooks and college students are also forced to pay outrageously high prices for their textbooks. “The books are basically chosen on the basis of who knows who.” Salabaj said his third priority would be to attack the corruption that exists in state government. “I have talked to people who are in office who say that is a losing battle,” he said. “But someone has to be in office who really questions what the other politicians are doing and brings it out to the public.” Salabaj noted that recently Harbor College invited Furutani to speak to the students there, but neglected to invite Salabaj. He said that was a form of corruption because the school is funded by taxpayer dollars and yet seems to be encouraging students to vote in a particular way. Salabaj graduated from the University of Laverne with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and is now completing a teacher credential program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He has been a real-estate salesman for the last nine years. He had worked for LAUSD as a physical-education instructor for several years but was laid off last February and is now a football coach for Bishop Montgomery High School, a private school in Torrance. “It is very important that everyone get out and vote in this election,” he said. “We are in a pivotal point in our state’s history, and we need to pick the right leaders to represent the people and not special-interest groups.” ß
comp payments to two years, but the problem is that some conditions last more than two years, so the injured employees who still cannot work because of their injuries must then go on welfare. So the state’s welfare costs increase. We need an audit to see how much money is being spent on welfare payments for those who are no longer able to collect workers comp payments.” Flores-Gibson also strongly condemned the way the legislature, with Lowenthal’s approval, chose to balance the budget last year. “In July 2009, my opponent voted to take $3.5 billion from local governments and school districts,” Flores-Gibson said. “Stripping local governments and school districts of money from their budgets, after many of them already forced employees into early retirement, cut back positions and dipped into reserves, is just plain irresponsible and doesn’t hold Sacramento accountable for its years of reckless spending.” Making matters worse, according to Flores-Gibson, Lowenthal and a majority of state legislators also voted to raise taxes in 2009. “We were told that higher taxes would keep teachers and firefighters working– it did not,” she said. “And, because of higher taxes, more businesses are leaving the state and our unemployment rate is higher.” According to Flores-Gibson, of the
aforementioned $3.5 billion, $1.7 billion came from state funds that would normally have gone to school districts. “How can my opponent say now that she cares about our schools when she votes to take so much money away from them, including $176 million from the Long Beach Unified School District?” Flores-Gibson asked. She said that, if she is elected, one of her first actions will be to introduce a bill that will bring back the $3.5 billion taken from the local governments and school districts. “I will also demand thorough audits of every state agency, department and commission to eliminate unnecessary entities, stop fraud and increase inefficiency,” she said. “We cannot afford two more years of business as usual in Sacramento.” Flores-Gibson earned a master’s degree in social work from Cal State University Long Beach and worked for the LBUSD for 20 years, mostly as a social worker, until budget cuts forced her layoff last March. The layoff gave her more time for a business she started two years ago, selling prepaid legal services. “I am not a polished career politician, but I do have the welfare of the people of the 54th District at heart,” she said. “By electing me, the people of the 54th Assembly District will be sending a clear message to Sacramento– we need to change the way our state government operates.” ß
Nick Diamantides Staff Writer
Republican Christopher Salabaj believes it’s time to change things in Sacramento, and he hopes the voters send him there to do so. Salabaj is running against incumbent Democrat Warren Furutani for the California Assembly 55th District seat. “The main reason I am running is because I and many other people in this district feel that our current politicians are not working for us,” he said. “It is very clear to all of us that our politicians are looking out for the people who are contributing to their election campaigns and that’s why we are in the mess that we are in right now.” Salabaj ran against Janice Hahn for the 15th District seat of the Los Angeles City Council in 2009 and lost. He said that race taught him much about how the election process works. “It’s not about whether you are a Democrat or a Republican– it’s about making decisions and passing laws that put the people first,” he said. “I want to represent the people of our district and make changes that Mr. Furutani can’t because he owes favors to the various unions and special-interest groups that contribute to his campaign.” Salabaj said that Furutani demonstrated his loyalty to his large campaign contributors during his last term. “If you look at all the bills that he drafted, they all relate to who gave him money and have nothing to do with helping our district,” he said. As an example, Salabaj mentioned a bill authored by Furutani that would have taken away the requirement that highschool students complete two years of physical education before being able to graduate. “Mr. Furutani wrote a bill that would have eliminated that requirement and instead offer the kids trade-school classes,” Salabaj said, adding that it was unconscionable for Furutani to try to get such a bill passed during a time when the youth of the country are experiencing an obesity epidemic. “It did not
Christopher Salabaj
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of the payroll tax and other burdensome taxes and fees imposed by state and local governments. “Nobody even asked Boeing why just this month alone it moved 500 local jobs to Oklahoma,” she said, adding that as a legislator she would have met with Boeing officials to ask if there was something that the state could do to keep those jobs here. “The payroll tax, the fees, the amount of paperwork that needs to be done and all the other forms of red tape are driving jobs out of California,” she said. Flores-Gibson added that the state’s workers compensation system also needs to be revamped. She said that, if she is elected, she will conduct a symposium on workers comp fraud and inefficiency to see how the state can reduce the amount of money employers have to pay for that insurance in California. She also wants to extend it beyond the two-year limit so that injured workers have adequate time to recover. “The problem is that Governor Schwarzenegger cut back on the amount of time that someone can collect on workers comp,” she said, explaining that the cutback amounted to little more than a shell game, because while the state’s workers comp costs have decreased, welfare costs have increased. “The governor cut workers
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