The Vista Unified School District sweetheart deal

"Instead of building a new school for Vista students, they bought trailers and called them the schools of the future, “modular” buildings. These overpriced modular buildings had leaky windows and roofs. Mike Vail claimed “stick built” permanent structures buildings were a thing of the past."
--Anonymous

I think this anonymous comment is interesting enough to deserve a post of its own. Below is the (almost) complete text, slightly edited. The original comment can be found under my post "Accelerated Charter School defaults on loan from taxpayers."

"VUSD recently built a over 40-million charter school for Guajome Park Academy with Prop. O Bond money.

"The Vista Unified School District was supposed to build a high school for students of the Vista Unified School District which VUSD two high schools house over 2,500 each. As it turns out VUSD built a 40- million campus for Guajome Park Academy. Guajome Park Academy student population comes from all over the county of San Diego.

"The VUSD did not build a high school for the students of VUSD. The taxpayers are stuck will the tab, literally millions and million of dollars are unaccounted for and so what happened here?

"Former Superintendent Dave Cowles, former facilities right-hand man Mike Veil, Former President of the Board David Hubbard, former leaders of the Vista Teacher Association and some of the leaders from Guajome Park Academy worked on the project, which was defended by Best Best and Krieger attorney Dina Harris.

"What actually took place is that the VUSD established a Citizens Oversight Committee. This Oversight Committee had members with conflicting interests. They all seemed to be connected in one way or another. Even Guajome Park Academy had their very own Administratior/teacher/501C3 holder/and Board of Directors for Guajome Park Academy named Beverly Kanawi. Kanawi was listed on the list of Oversight Committee members as a “community member,” but so where the rest of the folks in this committee.

See North County Times.

"The members of the Oversight Committee never seem to have filed any FFPC forms 700 or IRS 990’s. Many of the members were friends with the developers, and some VTA/PTA members of the Oversight Committee had their own construction companies. Here is the sweet heart deal you get your friends to bid for a job (school building) and make sure you bid LOW so that you get the contract. Once you get the contract you jack-up the price 2 or three times above the original bid.

"The taxpayers are left holding the bag!

"These folks happily fleeced the taxpayers and left with happy faces and a lot of cash.

"Instead of building a new school for Vista students, they bought trailers and called them the schools of the future, “modular” buildings. These overpriced modular buildings had leaky windows and roofs. Mike Vail claimed “stick built” permanent structures buildings were a thing of the past.

"However Guajome Park Academy Charter School got an award winning building while the Vista Unified students got the shaft and the taxpayers got fleeced."