Rivas pulls ahead of Brenes in L.A. school board race

Rocio Rivas has pulled ahead of Maria Brenes in a key Los Angeles Board of Education contest to represent downtown, surrounding neighborhoods and the Eastside, according the latest count.

Votes are still being counted, but in a new tally Friday, Rivas moved 47 votes ahead of Brenes, who had held the lead since polls closed on Tuesday.

In L.A.’s second school board race, to represent the east San Fernando Valley, school board President Kelly Gonez stretched her advantage over challenger Marvin Rodriguez to 1,578 votes — still not enough to decide the race. Gonez had 51.27% of the votes tallied, with 48.73% for Rodriguez, a high school Spanish teacher with virtually no campaign money or major endorsements.

In the contest between Brenes and Rivas, the count Friday stood at 30,736 votes for Rivas, or 50.04%, to 30,689 or 49.96% for Brenes.

Many votes remain to be counted, and it’s difficult to predict trends when many mail-in and provisional ballots could still be outstanding. Ballots mailed by election day, Nov. 8, will be counted as long as they arrive by next Tuesday.

Based on the turnout in the June primary, there could still be 10,000 to 15,000 votes to be counted in each school board district.

Campaign dollar figures through Friday showed that $9.5 million went into the Brenes-Rivas District 2 contest, with about twice as much — $3 million more — on behalf of Brenes, the leader of the Boyle Heights-based community group InnerCity Struggle.

Independent campaigns to elect Brenes were funded by Service Employees International Union Local 99, which represents custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and teacher aides; and by a political action committee run by retired businessman Bill Bloomfield and Netflix founder Reed Hastings, a charter schools supporter.

United Teachers Los Angeles launched an independent campaign to elect Rivas, a senior aide to school board member Jackie Goldberg. The union’s leaders join Rivas in calling for curtailing the growth and influence of charter schools, which are privately run, mostly nonunion and publicly funded, and compete with public schools for students.

The race’s winner will replace incumbent Monica Garcia, who could not seek reelection due to term limits.