What’s been a highly charged campaign for a Northeast Cobb seat on the Cobb Board of Education from the start got even more contentious this week.
The battle between Republican incumbent David Chastain and Democratic first-time candidate Catherine Pozniak for Post 4 has been waged over the Cobb County School District’s accreditation review, test scores and the endorsements of educators’ groups, among other issues.
In her latest attack, Pozniak filed an official complaint about Chastain’s campaign contributions.
That was after he took shots at an Ivy League university Pozniak attended in an off-handed comment congratulating victories by local sports teams.
What’s at stake is party control of the Cobb school board. Chastain, the current board chairman whose Post 4 area includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry attendance zones, is seeking a third term.
He’s part of a 4-3 GOP majority on a board that has been divided along partisan lines in recent years on a number of issues.
Pozniak, who graduated from Sprayberry High School and returned to Georgia two years ago, has been leading in campaign fundraising until recently.
Filings for both candidates on Sept. 30 indicate they have raised roughly $45,000 each.
In her complaint, Pozniak accused Chastain of violating state laws by accepting contributions in excess of state individual limits.
They include $5,500 from State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, a Republican from West Cobb who sponsored a bill redistricting lines for the Cobb school board favored by the board’s GOP members and bypassing a map recommended by the Democratic-led Cobb legislative delegation.
The GOP maps pushed Post 6, which currently includes the Walton and Wheeler attendance zones, fully into the Cumberland area, covering East Cobb with Chastain’s Post 4 and Post 5, held by Republican vice chairman David Banks.
Attorney Jonathan Crumly, whose firm Taylor English Duma redrew the school board lines the Republicans approved, is cited in Pozniak’s complaint as having contributed $4,000 to Chastain’s campaign.
The individual limit under Georgia campaign finance law is $3,000.
“The donors that gave David Chastain campaign contributions in excess of the campaign contribution limits are not just any donors. They are donors who benefitted from a no-bid contract David Chastain authorized as a member of the Cobb County Board of Education to draw a map that is not even the responsibility of the school board,” Pozniak said in a release issued by her campaign on Wednesday.
“David Chastain’s disregard for campaign finance laws raises serious questions about his leadership and conduct as Chairman of the Cobb County Board of Education, which oversees the district’s $1.5 billion budget.”
Chastain, who filed an amended campaign report in August splitting those contributions in two, between the primary and general elections, said it was an error that was corrected and heatedly denied violating state campaign laws.
In a press release his campaign issued Thursday, he said Pozniak has availed herself of the same “built-in amendment process for her own campaign.”
He said the complaint, filed with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, is “baseless and politics at its worst,” and shows “a deliberate attempt by Catherine Pozniak and her small platoon of Democratic socialists [that] is on full display by Cobb County.”
Chastain has hired Jake Evans, a former Republican 6th District Congressional candidate and a former head of the State Ethics Commission, to represent him in the complaint. That won’t be acted upon until after the Nov. 8 general election.
In his release, Chastain continued to hammer away at what he has charged is a coordinated campaign by outsiders to influence the Cobb school board.
Among Pozniak’s contributors is Emma Bloomberg, the daughter of former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who gave $300.
She’s among the “far-left fringe supporters” of Pozniak that include “the scandal-ridden Southern Poverty Law Center, the Teach-For-America organization, the radical National Education Association, among many other liberal groups/individuals in the far left Hall of Fame,” Chastain’s release said.
He asserted he “will not be distracted by the antics of this ‘woke’ candidate.”
Chastain came under fire over the weekend for a comment on his campaign Facebook page mocking the value of an Ivy League education.
Pozniak holds a doctorate in education from Harvard, and on Sunday, Chastain congratulated the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs for their football win—he’s a UGA graduate in a post bragging on Cobb schools recent SAT scores.
He also congratulated “my opponent’s far-left, Northeast, out-of-touch liberal, Ivy League university as well. Go, Harvard Football!”
More than 100 comments followed, many of them critical of the post. You can read through them by clicking here.
One commenter said “Love my Dawgs!!! …. Also, why are you tearing down someone for their school? Wouldn’t want my daughters to hear a school board member mock schools that kids in their district might attend (Ivy League, Northeast, or Liberal).”
Said another: “I hope there are more cogent arguments in favor of his opponent than the objectors present. Who will be better for education in Cobb? That is the issue, not perceived alma mater insults.”
In an interview earlier this week with East Cobb News, Chastain said he mentioned Harvard in the context of questioning Pozniak’s doctorate credentials.
“My opponent, when she emphasizes that she’s a doctor, what did this person do?” he said. He claimed that what she completed was not a dissertation but a capstone project that is being embargoed until 2057.
Normally mild-mannered in public, Chastain admitted that the pitched rhetoric from his campaign “is not like me, but it’s important to get out our message.”
A full candidate profile of Chastain is forthcoming, as is a similar profile of Pozniak.
In her interview with East Cobb News, she noted Chastain’s refusal for a direct debate (they’ve appeared at differing forums but not together).
She also said her education background (she taught on a native reservation in South Dakota and was a state education administrator in Louisiana) are needed on the board to ensure the Cobb school district improves, especially for students at-risk, after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My opponent is saying things are good enough,” Pozniak said. “But for so many families and students, it’s not good enough.”
Related:
- Candidate profile: JoAnn Birrell, Cobb Commission District 3
- Candidate profile: Christine Triebsch, Cobb Commission District 3
- Cobb early voting estimated wait-time map
- East Cobb Early Voting Guide: 2022 General Election
- Cobb Commission Democrats OK redistricting map
- Contested Post 4 seat on Cobb school board heats up
- Cobb 2022 general election sample ballot available
- Cobb to propose ordinance to redraw commission districts
- Cobb school board chairman trailing in campaign fundraising
- Cobb to add Sunday voting in 2022 general election
- East Cobb News Politics & Elections page
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