We Interrupt This Column for an Unpaid Political Announcement

This will only be of interest to people who live in Los Angeles.  Actually, it will only be of interest to a particularly uncommon subset of Los Angeles, notably those who are residents of District 4 for the L.A. Unified School District.  Now, I'm going to guess that most people don't have a clue if they live in District 4, so if you live in Los Angeles, you might as well keep reading.  Especially since it's a fairly large district -- most the western part of the city, yet parts of it also spreading as far east as Los Feliz to the east and north towards the Valley.  So, as I said, if you live anywhere in L.A., might as well read on.

Or, happily, it's easy to find out if you're in District 4.  There's a citywide election tomorrow, on Tuesday, so just check your Voter Handbook.  If there's a race listed for the Los Angeles School Board in District 4...bingo, you're in!!  Read on, MacDuff.

Anyway, because of this election I'm going to jump in the reminder game.  I was going to say "endorsement," but I've already endorsed the fellow in question, so this is just to remind people in District 4 to vote in a race they probably usually ignore, and not ignore it but vote for a wonderful fellow named Nick Melvoin.

Though my political opinions are likely fairly well-known here, unless you read between the lines and miss what's glaring on the surface, I don't believe I've used these pages to ever specifically make any endorsements.  That's why I think this exception is notable.

Over the past several months, I've posted a couple of articles here about Nick, who's the son of my good friend and occasionally-mentioned Jeff Melvoin.  As you might imagine, I've known Nick for a while, and he's quite terrific.  Yes, I'm biased, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  And in this case, I'm not.  This has never been a case of "Vote for Nick Melvoin" because he's a good guy.  This is - he'd be great in the position he's running for.  And the cool thing is that you don't even have to blindly take my opinion for it, if you prefer to ignore that.  I'll just note too that although he's running against the current president of the L.A. School Board, Nick was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times -- and was also endorsed by two former mayors, Richard Riordan (a Republican) and Anthony Villaraigosa (a Democrat).  

Since I've written about him twice, I won't go into a long explanation why Nick Melvoin is so impressive and why he's been endorsed by all these high-end folks.  If you're interested, you can read one of those more detailed articles here.  But I think at least a little background is important.  So, briefly in one pithy paragraph -- 

Nick graduated from Harvard, has a Masters degree in Urban Education, and got a law degree from NYU.  After that, he did some work for the ACLU, worked in the Obama White House with the Domestic Policy Council, and also clerked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in civil rights cases.  And then, rather than take a high-paying job at a big mucky-muck power law firm, he jumped from all that into -- getting a job teaching in the Los Angeles inner-city in Watts, where he also coached baseball and soccer.  And then helped start a school newspaper.

Like I said, just because I'm biased doesn't mean I'm wrong.  So, when I say Nick Melvoin is a great candidate, I'm not only in good company, but company that crosses the political lines.

That's why this is a reminder.  When you go to the polls on Tuesday, I hope you'll flip through the ballot and find the race for District 4 School Board and vote for Nick Melvoin.

I'll go a step further:  if you weren't planning to vote on Tuesday, since it's a reasonably-small, local election, I hope you'll go anyway, and even if you don't vote for anyone else -- even the race for mayor -- just go and vote for Nick.  This is likely a race that won't get all that many votes cast, so it's one of times when your vote really, actually, truly counts.  A handful of votes could, in fact, make a difference.

(By the way, I'm sure he is very grateful for this article.  Not because of what I wrote here but rather because I decided not to title the piece "Good St. Nick"...)

So -- okay, you get the point by now:  remember to vote tomorrow, and do consider strongly voting for Nick Melvoin.  He's a wonderful fellow, a pretty noble school teacher, a terrific candidate, and someone with a strong future.

As we always say in Chicago -- Vote early and often.

​I'm Robert J. Elisberg, and I approve this article.