CVESD is in Violation of the California Public Records Act

Patrick Judd, the CVESD board's longest serving member

On May 5, 2006, I received a 300-page response from Chula Vista Elementary School District's lawyers to my request (sent over a year earlier) for budget information concerning payments for lawyers and liability insurance.

The documents I received indicate that CVESD spends about $10 million a year on "other."

"Other"?

CVESD is obviously in violation of the California Public Records Act. I should have received BUDGET documents.

Instead, I was sent AUDIT documents, which contain no details at all about expenditures--just a handful of huge numbers, such as the total paid for salaries.

Now I'm really curious. San Diego Unified School District posts every payment to every lawyer on the Internet.

What is CVESD hiding?

And who is hiding it? Was it top administrators Lowell Billings, Susan Fahle and Dennis Doyle who decided on this policy?

Or--more likely--was it board members Pamela Smith, Patrick Judd, Cheryl Cox, Bertha Lopez, and Larry Cunningham?

Or--most likely of all--was it CVESD's lawyers at Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz?

Clearly, all these individuals are responsible for the policy. I suspect that the policy was first suggested by the law firm which is handling this issue:

Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz

These policies put Stutz lawyers in bad company. The federal government began in June 2004 to keep secret the reports of inspectors who visited the Sago mine, where disaster struck in 2006. Where there are secrets, there is very likely wrongdoing. And where there is wrongdoing, innocent people are likely to be hurt.