Candidates talk education

Robert Shaffer

PASADENA -- Five Assembly candidates generally stayed on campaign

themes and talked education Friday in front of a small gathering of

seniors at the Pasadena Senior Center.

Five of six 44th District Assembly candidates showed up. Republican

Susan Carpenter McMillan was absent, but sent a representative. Given

five minutes to make an opening statement, most candidates chose to

address health care, crime and education.

Republican Robert Wagner, who has spent the past 12 years in the

California Senior Legislature, advocated a tuition-free college education

to those wishing to become teachers.

Diana Peterson-More, a Democrat, pushed her plan of making schools the

center of the community. Schools should be open until 9 each night for

adult education, she said.

“We need to redesign the concept of a classroom from a teacher’s

domain to a community’s domain,” she said.

Damian Jones was the first candidate to leave the podium to mingle in

the crowd. Jones, a Republican, said both GOP union busters and

free-spending Democrats have let students down.

“Someplace in the middle is the answer,” he said.

Democrat Carol Liu, mayor of La Canada Flintridge, stressed her time

as a school teacher and her City Council experience.

“What people are talking about up here I’ve already done,” she said.

Also touting his experience was Democrat Barry Gordon, former

president of the Screen Actors Guild.

“The people I represented were very much a microcosm of society,” he

said. “My job every morning was to get up and make the lives of the

90,000 members better.”

A question from the audience queried candidates about their personal

view of abortion.

Every candidate said they supported a woman’s right to choose an

abortion except Carpenter McMillan, who was represented by her mother.