School Board Member Among 270 Owing on ‘Delinquent’ Sewer Accounts

School Board Member Among 270 Owing on ‘Delinquent’ Sewer Accounts
School trustee Bill Baber, treasurer to several political campaigns, faces $407 lien on property taxes.
By Ken Stone
La Mesa Patch
August 17, 2011

Thanks to recent council action, La Mesa hopes to collect $126,000 from people who haven’t paid their sewer bills—about 270 residents, businesses and other property owners.

Among those targeted is Bill Baber, a three-term member of the La Mesa-Spring Valley school board who served as campaign treasurer for incumbent Ernie Ewin in the 2010 La Mesa City Council race and state Sen. Joel Anderson.

Baber, an attorney, is currently the treasurer of Steve Danon’s campaign to unseat county Supervisor Pam Slater-Price in 2012.

Baber owes the city $407.72, according to a list of delinquent sewer accounts dated Aug. 3 (attached).

When contacted Tuesday night, Baber said he didn’t know he was on the sewer lien list—approved by a 5-0 vote of the City Council on July 26.

“I will investigate [the bill],” Baber said after Tuesday’s school board meeting. “If it’s a valid claim, I’ll take care of it.”

Also on the delinquent account list is Richard Bucklew, a member of the PBID Formation Committee, which is working to create a system in The Village where property owners tax themselves for various improvements and services.

Bucklew, owner of Don Keating Used Cars on La Mesa Boulevard, owes $747.56 on two parcels, according to the delinquent account list. In 2008, he owed $233.29. (The 2008 delinquent list said 359 accounts owed the city a total $103,747.)

An email to Bucklew’s business address wasn’t returned by late Tuesday night.

By far the largest amount owed by an individual is $9,521.50 by Joyce A. Peterson, who had to pay $4,457 in 2008 as well. The No. 2 individual is Charles Rowe, said to owe $1,428.

Sotal University Inc. owes $8,328, according to the 2011 list, and Sideral Systems Associates Inc. owes $1,039. In 2008, it owed $670.

On Nov. 8, a news release from Flocke & Avoyer Commercial Real Estate noted that Peterson had leased about 2,480 square feet at 5611 Lake Murray Blvd. to Scott Winston for a fitness center.

“The lease is for five years with a consideration of $195,708.12,” said Flocke & Avoyer.

The City Clerk’s Office said Tuesday it sent the names of delinquent accounts to the county Recorder’s Office so these can be added to the property tax bills of the listed people. When property tax bills go out, residents with liens will have to pay extra—the amount owed on sewer bills. The city then get its money.

Baber was first elected to the school board in 2000; his current term ends in December 2012. He has served as treasurer for Oceanside Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, a group reportedly backed by Associated Builders and Contractors, which is critical of labor unions.

Baber is listed as government affairs director for ABC’s San Diego chapter.

In December 2010, the state Fair Political Practices Commission found that Baber had violated state law “because you should have reflected the name of your sponsor in the name of your committee” during an Oceanside campaign.

But the FPPC levied no fine—only a warning...

La Mesa/Spring Valley's Rick Winet continues to amaze: he sees a death threat in Emerson quote

This post is a follow-up to this story about the banning of President Obama's speech in La Mesa-Spring Valley School District.

San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial
A school board polarized by politics
September 17, 2009

“Resign, resign, resign!” The chant rolled through the auditorium.

On Labor Day, the La Mesa/Spring Valley School Board met to ban live broadcasts of President Barack Obama's nationwide speech to students. It was a meeting called in haste, little publicized and attended by virtually no one. And it angered many. Eight days later, parents packed the auditorium at Parkway Middle School in La Mesa, intent on retribution.

Board President Penny Halgren apologized profusely for her motion to bar the presidential speech. Bob Duff apologized for being the swing vote, and a still-defiant Rick Winet acknowledged only that the board could have done better...

Then the board effectively undid its apology.

Winet seized upon the words in a union official's e-mail (“If you are going to challenge the King, you'd better kill the King” — an often-mangled quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson) to see a death threat. The board authorized use of all legal means against anyone making a personal attack, be it verbal or physical...









Maura Larkins' comment: I don't know who wrote the above editorial but I'm sure it was someone other than the confused and anonymous individual who wrote the following editorial for the same newspaper. This unethical pundit clearly blames the minority trustees for the banning of Obama's speech--when they voted against the measure.

What was the writer of the following editorial thinking?

School board's holiday meeting
San Diego Union Tribune Editorial
September 12, 2009

Mark Twain had some choice words about them: “In the first place, God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

It's not certifiable that the La Mesa/Spring Valley board members — Penny Halgren, Bob Duff and Rick Winet, the majority, or Emma Turner and Bill Baber, the minority — are idiots, but they sure left themselves open to second-guessing.

[Blogger's note: Shame on the San Diego Union-Tribune for adding the two minority trustees, who, as most school board members across the country, did NOT forbid showing Obama's speech to students. Only the first three people on the list--Winet, Halgren and Duff--left themselves open to "second-guessing."]

...Ami Adkins of El Cajon, parent of an eighth-grader, is unhappy. “Just to put this into context,” she wrote us, “two weeks ago my daughter was taken out of class during school (without my permission) to attend a district-sanctioned sales presentation given by a private corporation, where she was strongly ‘encouraged’ to sell cheap and useless junk (crap) from a magazine in order to pad the school's budget.”

So yes, we were not enthusiastic about the poorly timed broadcast. Neither do we support government censorship decided in a near-empty room on a holiday.

Dunce caps for the electeds do seem in order.

[Maura Larkins' comment: Dunce caps for Winet, Halgren, Duff and the Union Tribune are in order. Emma Turner and Bill Baber are the only board members who behaved well in this matter.]

La Mesa-Spring Valley trustee Rick Winet says Obama speech was "assault on constitution"; Halgren and Duff are sorry they voted with Winet

Board members Bill Baber (left) and Emma Turner (right) tried to defend openness and honesty in La Mesa-Spring Valley. They voted to allow students to hear President Obama's speech. Penny Halgren and Bob Duff now agree with them, and Rick Winet stands alone in his opposition.

Statements from La Mesa-Spring Valley school board members
San Diego Union Tribune
September 10, 2009

The La Mesa-Spring Valley school board voted 3-2 to prevent teachers from showing President Barack Obama's education speech to students on Tuesday. The three board members issued the following statements later this week:

Statement issued by Rick Winet on Sept. 8:

...My personal objection to the proposed presentation and curriculum by the President and the Secretary of Education centered on 2 areas:

1. This was a direct assault on The Constitution of The United States of America. U.S.C. code 3503 clearly states that Congress prohibits the Executive Branch from overriding local school boards and local branches of government of control of public school curriculum..I would not and will not ever support this sort of selfish, socialistic message as public school curriculum.

2. The President's speech and lesson plans were, in the end, clearly focused to deliver a message to high school age students... this message was not appropriate for a vast majority of our students...


Statement issued by trustee Penny Halgren on Sept. 10:

I apologize for my vote to delay showing President Obama's speech to the children in our school district. If I could roll back the clock and do it again, my vote would have been to show the speech live in our classrooms.

My intent was purely to create a rich and personally meaningful educational experience for each child in our district. Because of that narrow focus, I missed completely the value of the group experience gained by having all children listen to the speech at the same time.

Statement issued by trustee Bob Duff on Sept. 10:

After seeing the President's speech, I now believe the message should have been viewed live and I regret I was responsible for the delay. All should had the opportunity to have seen it live. For this I truly apologize.


Trustee Penny Halgren

'If I Could Roll Back the Clock'
Voice of San Diego
by Emily Alpert
September 10, 2009

I just got an e-mail from La Mesa-Spring Valley school board member Penny Halgren, apologizing for her vote to delay showing President Obama's speech to schoolchildren.

The East County district decided to make schools wait to show a recorded version of the speech until Wednesday so that it could be reviewed, barring them from turning on the live speech on Tuesday.

Halgren wrote:

If I could roll back the clock and do it again, my vote would have been to show the speech live in our classrooms.

My intent was purely to create a rich and personally meaningful educational experience for each child in our district.

Because of that narrow focus, I missed completely the value of the group experience gained by having all children listen to the speech at the same time.

... She explained that she hadn't understood that the group experience -- not the exact content of the speech itself -- was part of what made the event important. Two teachers who talked with her about it convinced her that it should have been a collective experience. "There are certain things that you do in life that bring us together as a community and as a nation," she said...