Dick Batchelor stops by to discuss LUV

Scott Maxwell reports...

Business and civic leaders have decided to throw their collective will (and wallets) behind an intense lobbying effort -- one that could hit your mailbox and the airwaves this week.

And part of what makes this thing unique is that there's no candidate involved. Instead, these folks are united in their belief that Orange County needs an elected chairman to provide buck-stops-here leadership for its oft-struggling schools.

So they are prepared to spend as much as $40,000 on radio ads and 20,000 mailers -- all designed to get residents to ramp up the pressure on current school officials, who have been less enthusiastic about the new position.

"The whole idea behind this," said organizer Dick Batchelor, "is to say to the School Board: Let us vote."

That is, in fact, the name of this political committee: Let Us Vote. . . or LUV.

That part's brilliant. I mean, you have to love LUV, right? Otherwise, you're hating LUV. And that sounds like something only a terrorist would do.

But Batchelor isn't fighting terrorists. He's up against the School Board.

Some board members dislike the idea. Joie Cadle, for instance, has argued that a countywide chairman would need so much campaign money to get into office that he or she would be beholden to special interests and would simply add a new layer of bureaucracy. "This is not a silver bullet," she said Monday.

Still, Cadle said she would be in favor of letting residents make that decision -- just not yet. Instead, she wants to wait until 2008, when the issue has been more thoroughly vetted. "I would be derelict in my duties to block people from voting on this," she said. "But we need to do it right."

The School Board votes tonight on whether this should be on the fall ballot.