Is it just my interpretation or did County Board of Education Member Jerry Rindone give the proverbial finger to Tony Krvaric and the Central Committee at the endorsement proceedings a couple of weeks back?
First off, let me say how disappointed several Central Committee members were when the vote was taken via voice vote in a room full of both members and non-members. This is not historically how the Party has taken endorsement votes, in the past doing so by ballot.
Additionally, members were a bit disgruntled that the candidates were not asked to leave the room during the vote. Several members have shared that they wanted to voice opinions against a candidate, but felt uncomfortable getting up in front of the individual to voice those concerns. And, please don’t reprimand me for talking about Central Committee votes outside of the meeting — this was NOT run as a closed meeting.
Now, with that out of the way, back to Rindone, who was being considered for a re-election endorsement that night. He actually got up in front of everyone and spat out how he had “learned his lesson” and would “NEVER” endorse a Democrat again. He blamed his past endorsement of a Democrat on the fact that the candidate’s wife was his secretary, he had to see her everyday, and hoped the Committee members would understand his predicament.
What he failed to tell the members was that when he endorsed the Democratic candidate who was married to his secretary, Rindone had actually already retired and was not seeing this former employee everyday — giving him no pressure to endorse.
On a bigger note, however, and the main reason for this pust is what was brought to my attention by a Committee Member. The vote for Rindone’s endorsement was taken on January 9 — again, where he stated he had “learned his lesson” — and just three days prior an article was published in the UT citing Rindone’s endorsement of Mary Salas for Chula Vista City Council. Last I checked, Mary was a die hard Democrat.
Rindone was obviously well aware that he had endorsed Salas prior to the vote for the Republican endorsement, but many Committee members shared with me they were unaware of that compelling information at the time and they would have definitely voted differently in light of it.
Tony Krvaric, the Committee needs to re-vote on Rindone’s endorsement. And, this time it needs to be a ballot with the candidate out of the room and only Committee members present.