Publication Date: Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Our Town: Won for the kids
Our Town: Won for the kids
(June 15, 2005) by Don Kazak
At 6:30 p.m. last Tuesday, election day, a Measure A campaign volunteer called a voter identified as a prospective "yes" vote on the Palo Alto Unified School District's parcel tax.
"I already voted," the voter said.
"No you didn't," replied the campaign worker, looking at a printout from the county Registrar of Voter's office that shows who has voted.
"OK, you caught me," the voter said. "I better go out and vote."
That's how the Measure A election was won -- by hundreds of campaign volunteers calling thousands of voters to make sure they went to the polls on election day.
Measure A won handily, with 73.5 percent of the vote, easily getting the needed two-thirds majority.
"I knew we were going to win when I walked into the living room of (campaign volunteer) Dave Charleson's home and there were 12 teachers waiting for the lists to make calls," school board President John Barton said on election night.
This was the power of cell phones, eager volunteers and more than a few pizzas.
The school district's blueprint for victory depended on the 450 to 500 people who pitched in the last four days of the campaign to get out the vote.
Phone banks were set up at Integrated Archive Systems, a Palo Alto company that hosted the effort on Saturday and Sunday before the election, campaign volunteer coordinator Samir Tuma said .
To keep those volunteers well-fed, Silicon Valley Bank donated pizzas on Saturday and sandwiches from Piazza's market on Sunday.
On Monday, volunteers trooped around town hanging campaign leaflets from doorknobs.
On Tuesday, it was back to the phones -- this time in 11 homes of volunteers scattered through the district, one in each elementary school area.
Ann Smitherman's home near El Carmelo Elementary School was awash in little kids.
"I had 30 preschoolers in my basement, playing and running around," she said, laughing. Upstairs, the moms kept dialing their cell phones, calling voters.
Two of the moms/volunteers, Carrie Manley and Lauren Segal, drove an elderly man to his polling place after he told a caller he would vote if someone gave him a ride. When they got to the polling place, Manley saw a woman she had just called to persuade to vote. "Is that Ling?" she asked. The two women hugged.
Stories like these were repeated election night at the Measure A party at the Gary Court home of Sunny and Dan Dykwel. Their living room and backyard were jammed with people who cheered as election results rolled in. People were giddy. It was a too-crowded, very loud, extra-happy party.
People power, cell phone power and pizza power all came together. A couple of moms told me that the "Measure A diet" for kids was pizza because mom was too busy working on the campaign to cook. I was also told that most of the women volunteers lost weight and most of the men gained weight, but I didn't want to ask about that.
"It was an incredible (election) day, with the diversity of people coming together," said Megan Swezey Fogarty, one of the three campaign chairs. She mentioned 3-year-olds hanging onto their moms' legs while calls were made. Her 81-year-old father also put in four hours working the phones.
The hundreds of volunteers who had signed onto the campaign were a major difference between the June 7 election and the similar parcel tax that failed narrowly last November. There was also a small dollar difference: The November ballot measure was $521 per year, while last week's was $493.
But $28 a year seems less crucial than getting those cell phones fired up on the last weekend and election day.
So it was a massive effort, fueled by good will and maybe a sense of desperation, too -- a wonderful motivator.
The sheer scale of the effort amazed former Mayor Gary Fazzino, also a campaign co-chair: "I've never seen a campaign where so many were involved," he said.
This election may be special in another way.
"It really has created a new generation of leaders for the school board and city," Fazzino said, quoting Barton.
It was a campaign for the ages. <"Times">
Weekly Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak can be emailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.
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