ELECTIONS / MOORPARK SCHOOL BOARD : Only 3 File for Vacant Position by Deadline

Three Moorpark residents have officially entered the race for a school board seat in a November special election.

Gary Cabriales, Ted M. Green Sr. and Helen Medeiros Taylor were the only three candidates to file papers seeking the office by Friday’s deadline. The vacancy on the board was created by the resignation of former school board President Sam Nainoa.

After an intense, four-hour interview with five applicants for Nainoa’s seat, the board in June appointed Cabriales to fulfill the remainder of the term expiring in November, 1994.

But the airline pilot and former Moorpark High School valedictorian had served less than a week when a group led by Taylor and other citizens seeking to take the issue out of the board’s hands gathered enough signatures to force the public vote Nov. 2.

Cabriales said Friday he had planned to seek the position when it naturally comes open in 1994 and welcomes the chance to run for it now.

“I think I have the ability to bring the parents, teachers and staff together,” he said. “I think the voters will base their decision on what is best for the district as well as their children.”

Green, who also applied for the board appointment but was not selected, said he was “humiliated” by the experience and vows to win his spot on the board through finding favor with the public.

“They (school board members) are not qualified to select anyone,” Green said. “They have no Ph.D or any prerequisite to decide who should serve the community. I question their qualifications as leaders and I question whether they could endure such a ritual as they subjected me to.”

Green said he is running for the board because he feels a sense of responsibility to the parents of the city. He also said that after eight years working with the board on minority issues--including frequent requests for the district to remove the controversial novel “The Cay” from its reading list--he is looking to expand his constituency.

“I think that we need a board member that speaks his mind and has no fear of retaliation,” Green said.

Taylor, who also has been a vocal critic of the current board, said this week she wants to give parents a stronger voice in local education.

The 10-year Moorpark resident in April, 1992, organized a group called “Parents for Better Schools,” which gathered more than 1,300 signatures and prompted the school board to impanel a committee to study the configuration of the district’s elementary schools.

“I feel that the parents need better representation on the board,” Taylor said. “I feel very strongly that parents don’t have any clout and I’d like that to change. I’m aware of the issues and I’m ready to get to work and I don’t think there are too many people out there who are ready to get to work.”

Nainoa resigned from the board June 4, saying work obligations would force him to leave the city for extended periods.

It took only 175 valid signatures to prompt the special election that will cost the district roughly $3,400, county elections officials said.

Taylor, residents Dorothy Ann Ventimiglia, Stacy A. Seeman and former councilwoman Eloise Brown spearheaded the petition drive because, they said, a public election was the proper way to fill the vacancy.

“The accountability of the person in the seat must be to the voters and not to current board,” Brown said Friday.