Your donation will help us produce journalism like this. Please give today.
Alex Caputo-Pearl
All that criticism of Warren Fletcher as a weak UTLA president and of Alex Caputo-Pearl as a campaign rules scofflaw apparently didn’t make much difference.
They emerged as the top two vote-getters for the president of United Teacher Los Angeles in the first round of voting in the union’s 2014 election campaign and are now headed to a runoff. The survivor wins a three-year term.
While Caputo-Pearl, head of the left-leaning “Union Power” slate, ran away with first-place, collecting 3,408 votes (48%), Fletcher came in second with 1,508 votes (21.2%), and not far behind was Gregg Solkovits, the current secondary vice president, who had 1,142 votes (16%).
Bill Gaffney led the remaining candidates with 323 votes.
Warren Fletcher, current president of UTLA
Only 7,099 votes were cast for the 10 men running for president, representing 22 percent of the 31,000 member union. voting members.
The results are pending challenges and must be certified by the UTLA Board to be official. A challenge is likely – opponents have accused Caputo-Pearl of violating union election rules by campaigning during school hours without permission. (Read story here).
Superintendent John Deasy tells LA School Report that the principal who gave Alex Caputo-Pearl permission to take unpaid time off to campaign has been disciplined. The LA Times reports that Caputo-Pearl is facing discipline for taking a leave of absence to campaign. (Read story here).
The union said ballots for the runoff will be mailed out on April 7. Only the race for the presidency is going to a runoff. For all other offices and positions, winners had a majority vote. Once all election cycles are complete, the new Officers and Board of Directors members take office July 1, 2014, and will serve until June 30, 2017.
Complete election results can be found here.