Campaign flier adds more controversy to Twin Rivers school board battle

Add a campaign letter to the petty politics that have muddied a school board race in the Twin Rivers Unified School District.

Distributed by “Robla Neighbors United,” the letter endorses Basim Elkarra over Sonja Cameron for the board's Area Five seat ahead of a May 12 vote. But Robla School Board president Craig DeLuz said he's never heard of the group, and said two of the letter's three signors, Walter Kawamoto and Sascha Vogt, don't live in the Robla area.

Kawamoto, TRUSD's Area Three trustee, said he considered “Robla Neighbors United” to be the title of the letter, and that he “never once (thought that he) was part of a Robla organization.”

It may seem small, but the hubbub shows that things haven't calmed after last week's uproar over an anti-Islamic flier impugned Elkarra's work with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Both candidates denied any role in producing the flier, though Elkarra said he predicted someone would attempt a hit piece on him and that it would backfire.

And it did.

On Saturday, community members attended an Elkarra-sponsored “Rally Against Hate.” Although the TRUSD school board appointed Cameron late last year to the seat left vacant by Cortez Quinn over Elkarra and 11 other candidates, two board members, Kawamoto and Michael Baker, now publicly support Elkarra.

DeLuz said the five-member Robla board unanimously supports Cameron. Robla is a small K-6 district geographically overlapping part of TRUSD Area Five.