* UPDATED Barely a week after losing to George McKenna for an LA Unified School District board seat, Alex Johnson is eying another board seat. His former boss, LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, has nominated him to fill a soon-to-be vacant seat on the LA County Board of Education, a body that hears appeals of...

The City Clerk Elections Division has certified the results of the LA Unified District 1 election, giving George McKenna final tally of 52.81 percent of the vote, to 47.18 percent for Alex Johnson. Overall, turnout for the Aug. 12 runoff was 9.5 percent of the district’s 342,493 voters, a disappointing but not horrible count, given...

The morning after his defeat to George McKenna by seven points in the race for a seat on the LA Unified School Board of Education, Alex Johnson congratulated his opponent and said, “I wish him well as he prepares to assume his new responsibilities.” He added, “I’m proud of my campaign for school board and equally proud...

Fun with numbers: By the LA City Clerk’s unofficial results from last night, George McKenna won with 14,940 votes to 13,153 for Alex Johnson. That translates to $6.79 the McKenna campaign spent for each vote, $101,479 overall, compared with $10.22 that the Johnson campaign paid for each vote, $134,470 overall. Among the independent groups who spent...

With LA Unified’s District 1 election approaching, LA School Report asked each of the candidates, Alex Johnson and George McKenna, a series of questions about some of the bigger challenges facing the district. The effort was based on the fact — an unfortunate one for voters — that the two have not appeared together for a policy debate since...

Since the June 3 primary that produced Alex Johnson and George McKenna as the finalists for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat election on Aug. 12, the candidates have engaged in no public debates that would give voters a better opportunity to learn their views on contemporary issues. As a result, LA School Report has...

Until recently, only one group had gone negative in the campaign between Alex Johnson and George McKenna for the open LA Unified school board seat. The African American Voter Registration, Education and Participation Project (AARVEP), which supports Johnson, sponsored three mailers, calling into question McKenna’s background as a school administrator, prompting the McKenna campaign to...

Even as the runoff election appears to be tightening to fill the vacant LA Unified school board seat in south LA, the question is not only who will win, but just how low can voter turnout go? Set for August 12, the stand-alone election not only falls in the dog days of summer, but also...

Alex Johnson has no greater supporter in his bid for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat than Mark Ridley-Thomas, the LA County Supervisor he has served as an education aide. But it’s more than Ridley-Thomas’s vocal support that’s helping Johnson in his quest to beat George McKenna in the Aug. 12 runoff after McKenna outpolled him in...