Can anyone explain how people are voting for BOE?

Submitted by freecain t3_yqu7ov in ColumbiaMD

Look, I am beyond thrilled we didn't elect Tudy Adler, and am upset Chen was as popular as he is (I'm not going to get over him suggesting FARM students should "Graduate" from the program ... "GET A JOB KIDS!") - but here we are. Newberger probably won't win (though there is a chance). Newberger might push out McCoy - but it seems unlikely. Newberger not being elected breaks my heart.

The Question: What combination of voting got us here? I can't imagine any Tudy votes casting a vote for anyone but Chen. But, there are SO many more Chen voters than Adler voters. Were a ton of people just voting for Chen? I would have expected a number of Chen/Newberger and Chen/Adler votes, and then McCoy/Newberger votes. But, McCoy came out ahead, so were people voting McCoy/Chen and if so - what the heck are there political views?

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setho212 t1_ivqdvd4 wrote

My thought process was that progressives focused hard on Adler’s far right views and conservatives focused hard on Newberger’s progressive views so voters might have been reluctant to vote for either of them. Chen was very good at concealing that he is a conservative guy. Everything I saw that he posted was just so generic and vague. Other the redistricting, pretty much all his positions are just generic promises that anyone could get behind. It would take further digging that most voters don’t do to realize that Chen does not have the best view of the less well off of that he is incredibly dismissive of the issues facing LGBTQ students.

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nosayso t1_ivqfht3 wrote

Yeah I think Chen's outreach to Asian communities and his intentional withholding of the scary specifics of his agenda worked to get him the seat. Then Chen sign in front of Hunan Manor always made me disappointed.

There's also a lot of rich republican or republican-leaning people who have been really against redistricting and he appeals to that block.

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[deleted] t1_ivt42nt wrote

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setho212 t1_ivt5crm wrote

She supported policies that would have prohibited even mentioning the existence of LGBTQ people in classes below the high school level and even then she supported giving parents the right to pull their kids out of any class that discussed LGBTQ issues. Her opinions on book banning also went beyond just that one example. She supported overriding decisions made by educators and librarians to allow banning books that have “sexually explicitly content”. What exactly is considered sexually explicit remained to be seen, but given the postings on Facebook by her most ardent supporters, it is clear that it if she were in power there would be attempts to ban books more innocuous than the example you provided. That language she used in her campaign, specifically the phrases neighborhood schools and parents rights while sounding innocent enough are code words used by far right groups pushing agendas far right agendas.

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[deleted] t1_ivt69j1 wrote

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setho212 t1_ivt93h5 wrote

Let’s just start off with the fact that I did not downvote you so don’t jump to conclusions.

Adler was very good at putting on a nice face and saying things that sound ok at first but weren’t quite what they seemed when you looked deeper, so I didn’t trust her to restrict her position on books to just be “pedophilia dick-sucking.” Her positions on LGBTQ issues is a good example of this. She frequently said that she supported all students and that students should feel welcome and accepted in schools, but then supported policies that treated LGBTQ students like pariahs. Banning even the mention of anything relating to LGBTQ people from middle and elementary schools is absurd and detrimental to LGBTQ youth and kids with LGBTQ families. How do you think a kid in elementary school with 2 male or 2 female parents would feel if in a discussion of families they were not permitted to talk about their family? It’s potentially even worse for middle schoolers given their greater awareness. It’s hard to believe an 8th grader struggling with conflicted feelings about their sexual orientation wouldn’t feel some sort of shame about their feelings if presented with a policy that does not permit the mention of LGBTQ people or that they wouldn’t offended by the reduction of their own parents to inappropriate sexual beings rather than loving parents.

All one has to do is look to the groups pushing the Adler candidacy to see what a change in book policies in schools would have lead to. She was heavily supported by people from two Facebook groups, Howard County Neighbors United and Families Unite Howard County (yes, FUHC). These groups had many postings vilifying LGBTQ people and decrying the “indoctrination of students.” Their complaints went far beyond the example we’re talking about to anything LGBTQ related. To these people anything LGBTQ is sexually explicitly and needs to be banned. It seemed clear to me, given Adler’s position on even talking about LGBTQ issues that she would be sympathetic to this claim at the very least if not an outright supporter of it.

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[deleted] t1_ivtb02p wrote

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setho212 t1_ivtc306 wrote

https://www.cary-hoco.org/adler

Look at questions 4 and 5.

Also, at a recent BOE candidate forum, a gay father asked Adler (and Chen) why they don’t support his child feeling accepted in school. Adler’s response was that there are parents who aren’t comfortable yet. Others may disagree, but I don’t feel as though people that do not accept gay people in this day and age should dictate school policy. We do not accept racism as a valid reason for making school policy and we should not accept anti-LGBTQ beliefs as a valid reason.

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tennisatheist t1_ivq8jzj wrote

People voting for ethnicity vs party affiliation.

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seekingpolaris t1_ivqsd1y wrote

Hard to do party affiliation when it's not listed in the ballot.

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MinimumAnalysis5378 t1_ivt2h2h wrote

Candidates use language that is associated with different parties. If a candidate says they want to remove CRT from classrooms, they are probably more closely affiliated with one party.

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Particular_Look1965 t1_ivqomfz wrote

A good portion of Chen’s voters who share his ethnicity “bullet” voted for him only. To a lesser extent that happened with McCoy. The bullet voting was to the degree that it out the two of them over the top. It’s understandable that people want to vote in a way that gets the representation. Rank choice voting would allow them to give their favorite candidate a boast while also voting for their other candidate choices.

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hocohappy t1_ivqma42 wrote

It’s pretty disappointing tbh. I’m worried about our LGBTQ students with that conservative voting bloc

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Precious-Teacup-1619 t1_ivrspw9 wrote

Chen did an excellent job at hiding their extremely conservative standpoints. Their comments on FARMs is incredibly telling and deeply rooted in severe prejudice. Unfortunately, that didn’t get enough attention.

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freecain OP t1_ivrw7ql wrote

Not to mention his quote on how we shouldn't talk about LGBTQ families in school because some people aren't ready to accept that yet.

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Tacticus1 t1_ivqjk1m wrote

Adler got way more negative press than Chen. There’s probably a pretty significant chunk of people who aren’t interested in the wild culture war stuff that Adler offered, but are receptive to other conservative themes on unions, redistricting, and student achievement.

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bargle0 t1_ivrcrlk wrote

I only saw advertisements for Chen. I didn’t see ads from anyone else.

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TAU_equals_2PI t1_ivsi4lq wrote

Seriously, that guy spent a lot of (his own?) money for a BoE race.

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hoco718 t1_ivrtrau wrote

Chen / McCoy voter here. One thing to just put context in on here is that this is a BOE election, so the scope of what they affect is limited compared to say county council, and two, whoever wins is part of a larger council.

I'm center/a little left leaning, which means I often dislike parts of both DNC and GOP candidate’s platforms. This BOE was no exception. Pretty much my strategy every time I vote is prioritizing what is the most important to me combined with who I think can win.

  1. Focus on school building infrastructure and the academics,and not getting caught up in the rest of politics (Again, these candidates are for BOE and NOT county council. What they do is limited.)
  2. I’m generally against redistricting/ bussing. (Mostly because redistricting can cause the value of your home to swing wildly and I am hoping to move to a different home within HoCo in the next few years, and I think everyone here knows how much homes are here.)
  3. I’m generally in favor of having SROs. (In addition to specially trained mental health staff. Aka do both strategies) I think overall HCPD has a pretty good relationship with the community and they provide essential services.

I am generally in favor of LGBTQIA+ and do not see a point to book bans, however, in this case it wasn’t high enough on the priority list compared to the other issues. I’m not really on the ‘Equity’ bandwagon for this one because it would likely promote redistricting. Chen hits the 3 biggest priorities for me. McCoy is better than Newberger as McCoy is currently undecided on SROs. Adler didn't stand a chance as she puts a ton of ‘culture war’ vibes out.

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dirtycrabcakes t1_ivurwy2 wrote

>I’m generally against redistricting/ bussing. (Mostly because redistricting can cause the value of your home to swing wildly and I am hoping to move to a different home within HoCo in the next few years, and I think everyone here knows how much homes are here.)

I'm annoyed saddened that this is considered a reasonable stance.

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hoco718 t1_ivv98qc wrote

Since this makes you sad, maybe I can help rationalize it?

Whether we like it or not, school district has a huge impact on home value. You're asking a small number of people in redistricted areas to pay the entire cost of equity. 10-20% of a home's value is equal to a down payment. That is a ton of money... Tens of thousands of dollars. I'm not rich and people (including myself) spent many many years to save up for it. No one wants to be the unlucky ones who have to pay for it all.

It's actually sort of poetic that you want to "promote equity" in such an inequitable way.

I'd consider supporting measures addressing equity if the burden wasn't placed on a concentrated segment of people. History tells me the people who feel the brunt of redistricting aren't going to be the "rich, wealthy, and privileged". Those polygons don't change.

Edit: Formatting.

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dirtycrabcakes t1_ivvbe49 wrote

First off - it's not the County's responsibility to protect your home values. That should have ZERO consideration when it comes to EDUCATIONAL decisions.

We are talking about property values in the one of the wealthiest counties in one of the the wealthiest states. Property values are not a "concern" here. And perhaps property values would not vary so widely, if certain communities didn't work so hard to segregate themselves from those they see themselves as better than.

And here's what makes me sad. Columbia has it written into it's core values that it is a community of shared resources and actively looks to integrate communities of varying economic status, attending the same schools, etc.

Then you have communities like Maple Lawn the get built overnight, sit nearly vacant for years before the demand catches up. Then once demand is there and people say "now we need affordable housing" and Maple Lawn residents say "oh but the infrastructure can't support it!!!" And they spend all of their money and political capital to keep "the poors" away from their community. No - they must go live in Columbia. And so what happens? You successfully segregate yourselves. And then the schools become segregated. And now the board has to resort to redistricting in order to correct that.

It's modern day segregation hidden behind property values. So yeah... pay the fuck up.

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hoco718 t1_ivveloz wrote

You might not like/disagree with it, but I'm just explaining why some people don't want redistricting. You're still putting the burden unfairly on a small number of households which I think is wrong.

Why shouldn't property values be considered in educational decisions? Last I remembered... Property taxes pay for education?

I'd say if there was a county-paid reimbursement for homeowners/values that are affected from redistricting then it would be A'Okay with me-- that means everyone is equally paying for the cost/raise taxes. However, I doubt that would get support and it's easier to mess with a small number of polygons/people.

Edit: I wanted to add a bit more about racial claims. It's not about segregation, at least not for Chen.

This is the demographics of HoCo schools: https://www.hcpss.org/about-us/facts/

These are the demographics of the schools his kids attend:

https://www.hcpss.org/f/schools/profiles/prof_es_hammond.pdf

https://www.hcpss.org/f/schools/profiles/prof_ms_hammond.pdf

https://www.hcpss.org/f/schools/profiles/prof_hs_reservoir.pdf

They are actually pretty close to HoCo average.

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SuddenBird4926 t1_ivt1pu1 wrote

McCoy is not undecided on SROs. There is video of her stance. She is against and feels staff should be trained in conflict resolution. McCoy also favors busing kids all over the county in the name of equity.

Reading comments like this, it becomes clear why the state of things in our schools is the way that it is.

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Precious-Teacup-1619 t1_ivu845n wrote

These are the statements from McCoy on SROs. She said she is undecided.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0zvZvP4FhBhYgg4L3i5Wfbf4ctYxZ4BKeB6g9iomAe5mXDGNJqjh24xUhcWqavRual&id=100081157609001

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SuddenBird4926 t1_ivxuqcs wrote

Sure. There are plenty of clips of her saying otherwise but I am not going to waste my time. The 2 candidates who said the least are in the lead. I cannot wait for all the outrage once this terrible BOE gets rolling. Lol.

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MrQuint1975 t1_ivr5kyz wrote

Definitely an odd split. I suppose maybe because McCoy/Newberger were seen as a “duo” that some people may have split their vote a bit, figuring they wanted a little more conservative balance without the extreme of Adler (CRT, really?). I can’t remember where McCoy stood on SROs. Newberger was quite adamantly against them, and maybe that swung some votes away.

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Prolapst_amos t1_ivrqrrh wrote

Chef’s website was deliberately vague, and he seemed to have the weakest background in education. I definitely got vibes he was trying to coast in with an Asian last name.

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TAU_equals_2PI t1_ivshu3s wrote

Chen prominently displayed that he had a PhD in a STEM field. That's a credential that impresses people that he's a smart guy, even if the field isn't really applicable to a job on the BoE.

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Baltisotan t1_ivqrvrv wrote

It may be too early to count on Chen winning. There are massive amounts of mail in ballots left to count and he is trailing hard in them.

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k0vi86 t1_ivszm3y wrote

I was tempted to vote for Newberger and Adler to watch it all burn.

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SuddenBird4926 t1_ivt1uo5 wrote

It will burn because we currently have a BOE that is mostly compromised of folks who are only concerned about their political agenda.

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unled_horse t1_iw0sp1i wrote

Can I ask where you all find your information on these BOE candidates? I read one or two interviews on Baltimore Fishbowl, I think.

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freecain OP t1_iw0wcm7 wrote

The debates were pretty telling. Also, ScottEBlog interviewed a bunch of them. Basically, lots of googling and then checking what the source was against issues I'm well versed in.

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butter08 t1_ivqchq2 wrote

People vote for last names that are closer to the beginning of the alphabet. A candidates will get more votes than Z candidates.

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k0vi86 t1_ivszl89 wrote

How did that work out for Adler?

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acinott1 t1_ivurjrm wrote

Asians voted for Chen and didn't really care about the rest. What's the mystery?

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SuddenBird4926 t1_ivygvva wrote

And the same can be said for Jacky. The two least transparent candidates got the most votes. Jacky is clearly tied tightly to Ball because she really did the bare minimum and her resume is filled with holes. I bet we see her side hustle training classes show up in our schools shortly and prepare to have kids bused all over the county. Oh and if we are really lucky, her A/B day virtual idea will pass to combat overcrowding and our kids will be back on our couches part time.

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meabbott t1_ivr3raz wrote

You don't vote for Bind On Equip. Bind On Equip happens whether you like it or not.

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