Voters on Tuesday elected Joe Radabaugh and incumbents Dan Jeffries and Kaitzer Puglia to sit on the La Cañada Unified School District Governing Board for the upcoming four-year term.
Jeffries, the current board president and a longtime prosecutor with the L.A. City Attorney’s office, was the leading vote-getter with 2,104 votes as of Wednesday morning, according to preliminary results posted by the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder.
Jeffries will serve a second term, as will Puglia, a teacher of education at Pasadena City College. She garnered 1,606 votes. Newcomer Radabaugh, recently retired from Nestle, finished second with 1,964 votes in his first political campaign.
They will join Ellen Multari and Brent Kuszyk on the five-member board. David Sagal announced earlier this year that he wouldn’t run for a second term.
“I love working with Kaitzer. She’s got the educational expertise and background, which is great,” Jeffries said. “And Joe’s a wonderful addition to our board. He’s been active in the Educational Foundation, he’s shown his commitment and passion to the schools already, and his campaign showed he was willing to work hard and roll up his sleeves to put in the effort as necessary.”
Jeffries also complimented fellow candidates Christopher Salvo and Joshua Gottheim, who finished with 1,164 votes and 1,088 votes, respectively.
“I want to thank them for all their effort,” Jeffries said. “It benefits our community when we have discussions about the issues facing the schools.”
Radabaugh said he’ll be a better Governing Board member for having campaigned for the past several weeks.
“It could’ve been an appointment process, where three people run and three people get in, but the benefit of going to an open election is that it let the community talk about the issues, so now I feel so much more prepared than I might have been,” said Radabaugh, who collected endorsements from a long list of community leaders, including Multari, Kuszyk and Sagal.
Measure LCF — which passed convincingly with 71.33% of the vote, according to the preliminary results — was at the top of the issues being discussed this campaign. The $149 million bond will be used to fund improvements at each campus in the district.
“Now we have to make sure we are very responsive and accountable to the community,” Puglia said. “We need to come up with really concrete plans in regard to this bond measure, so we’re responding to the needs of our students but also meeting the needs of the community … because it’s a collective effort.
“I am truly appreciative of the community trusting us to pass Measure LCF,” she added. “And I’m very thankful that the community trusts me to continue the work on behalf of the students and families.”
Radabaugh hit the same note: “I’m deeply appreciative of the breadth of support. It warms my heart.”
“And now,” said Jeffries, “we’ve gotta get started right away.”
Jeffries, Radabaugh, Puglia Earn School Board Seats
