By Raymond Mendoza Walnut – Political mudslinging is a well known tactic to the general public during Presidential elections; however the perils of negative campaigning can also threaten the validity of elections for city government, such as elections for City Council or the Board of Trustees for a school district. For small cities like Diamond Bar and Walnut, negative campaigning might seem like an impossible feat for such friendly communities, yet no election is without some form of controversy. With the Walnut Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees’ elections on the horizon for November 5, candidates and citizens are aware of the negative campaigning that is being directed toward some of the candidates running for re-election. WVUSD Clerk Cindy Ruiz chose not to focus on the bad aspects of local government and negative campaign slurs and instead believes in each candidate showing their value and work ethic to the city they represent. “I’m a believer in running a positive campaign and not tearing somebody else down,” said Ruiz. “Run a positive campaign, run on my own merit and not do anything negative against another candidate.” WVUSD President Helen M. Hall, on the other hand, stated that politics are much less harsh in comparison to other higher forms of government and claimed that there is less conflict since school boards are non-partisan, making each candidate’s political party a null topic. “At the school board level typically we don’t see (negative campaigning),” said Hall. “It’s a non-partisan race meaning it’s not Republicans and Democrats it’s just all students in a district… so in that sense, no: in the School Board level, I’ve never had the opportunity to be part of (negative campaigning). It really hasn’t happened in our district.” After assuring that negative campaigning rarely happens for Board of Trustees elections, Hall did mention that elections for City Council can sometimes be “more cut throat.” And “cut throat” could very well be an applicable term for former Diamond Bar City Council Member and former Mayor Eileen Ansari, whose 2001 bid for Diamond Bar City Council re-election was lost following claims that she was linked to terrorist activities due to her marriage to a Muslim man. “Well it was post 9/11 and as you know my family and my husband are Muslims, so some really nasty stuff was put out about me,” said Ansari. “It cost me the election and it was such negative things.” Even though Ansari’s City Council election was almost 12 years ago, she still claims that the negative campaigning against her is what made her lose the election and that political muckraking was the only way she could have lost her seat as a City Council member. “That would be the only way to get me out of office,” said Ansari. “I was liked and I think that was the only way they could get me out of office was to do something about 9/11 to me, and as it turns out it was really horrendous how they could do something like that to somebody.” So while Ansari’s election is now a thing of the past, the former City Council member hopes that the upcoming WVUSD election will be free from political lies and negative campaigning.
