Victims of sexual abuse in schools lose one

Here's a recent boast from the Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz website:

"...In a precedent setting decision, the California Supreme Court upheld the stricter time limitations for alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse to file suit against public entities. The reversal of the local Court of Appeal, obtained by attorneys Dan Shinoff, Jack Sleeth, Bill Pate, Jeff Morris and Paul Carelli, all partners with the firm Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, protects public entities from the so-called “revival” statutes.

"As the name suggests, the Legislature (under Gray Davis) passed the revival statutes to revive really old claims, which normally would have expired under statutes of limitation.

"Revival statutes have been the vehicle for the highly publicized clergy abuse claims against the Catholic Diocese. This decision virtually eliminates the ability to bring similar cases against government entities."

That's your tax dollars at work, folks! Keep a close eye on your kids!

Catholic churches have a financial motive to watch priests more closely, but your local elementary school doesn't.

Shirk v. Vista Unified School District August 20, 2007

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Will Shinoff, Sleeth and Stutz law firm finally be forced out of MiraCosta College?

This blog long ago called for Daniel Shinoff to stop digging MiraCosta College ever deeper into the morass he created there. It seems that Superior Court Judge Michael Anello agrees.

Here is an article about the effort to disqualify Shinoff, Sleeth and other Stutz law firm lawyers from representing MiraCosta College.

NORTH COUNTY TIMES
August 25, 2007

VISTA ---- Superior Court Judge Michael Anello heard arguments Friday for and against disqualifying the law firm representing MiraCosta College in the case of a former vice president who has sued the college, but issued no final ruling...

However, in a tentative ruling issued Thursday, Anello sided with attorney Tracy Warren in granting the disqualification.

Warren represents Julie Hatoff, the former vice president of instruction accused by college officials of "wasting taxpayer money" and "protecting a rogue employee." She faces disciplinary action by the college before an administrative law judge.

Hatoff sued the college in May, alleging breach of contract, negligence, extortion, harassment and labor law violations.

In his tentative ruling, Anello said Daniel Shinoff, a partner in the law firm Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff and Holtz, violated a rule requiring lawyers to clearly inform people who they represent.

Warren said in court Friday and in court documents that Shinoff had opportunities in five meetings during the investigation of the illegal sale of palm trees from the campus horticulture department to tell Hatoff that he represented the college ---- not her as an officer of the college.

Warren said Shinoff guaranteed Hatoff confidential "attorney-client privilege" protection but then used information she provided to build a case against her.

Jack Sleeth, an attorney with Shinoff's law firm, argued Friday that Hatoff was never his client, and so no rules prescribing the attorney-client relationship pertain.


http://northcountytimes.com/articles/2007/08/25/news/coastal/23_47_488_24_07.txt
This is an earlier version of the article:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/08/24/news/coastal/21_08_528_23_07.txt

[Interestingly enough, attorney Ann Smith, of San Diego MEA pension fame, violated the rule to clearly inform a client if they are already representing someone who is in opposition to that client. Ann Smith asked me a lot of questions in January 2002 when I went to her office. Then I found out that she never considered representing my interests, and was helping those who were opposing me].

The connection between school violence and the special ed lawsuits won by Daniel Shinoff et al

As I sat listening to Superintendent Terry Ryan (Grossmont Union High School District) say that he wanted to hire lawyers who wouldn't cost much and would win cases, I shook my head. Mr. Ryan doesn't want to be advised as to the appropriate legal actions he should take. Ryan wants his main lawyer to be Daniel Shinoff, who offers districts the service of helping them get away with breaking the law. Shame on you, Mr. Ryan, for wanting that kind of lawyer.

Susan Ohanian recently published an article that talks about the efforts of school districts to save money on special education students by mainstreaming them instead of sending them to special schools.

The article brought back the memory of Mr. Ryan saying that special education lawsuits were a big part of the district's legal budget.

Gary Mayerson, a New York attorney whose firm has litigated cases on behalf of special-education students in 30 states, says:

"There is nobody more pro-inclusion than myself, but many school districts are using it as a pretext to avoid having to pay for appropriate special education."

Here's a quote from the article:
"On the morning of Sept. 29, 2006, Eric, then 15 years old, walked into Weston Public with two guns and shot dead the school's principal, John Klang, police reports indicate. He told investigators he was tired of taunting by other students and aimed to "confront" Mr. Klang, teachers and students. He has been charged with first-degree murder.

""Could anybody anticipate this?" asks Eric's attorney, Rhoda Ricciardi. "I think everybody could have." "

Lora Duzyk and Dan Shinoff say Shinoff works for SDCOE

According to the San Diego County Office of Education's website, it offers the following slate of lawyers for school districts to hire:
Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo
Best, Best & Krieger
Lozano Smith
Parham & Rajcic
(Link: List of approved SDCOE attorneys.

But recently I sent a public records request to SDCOE asking for "a complete list of attorneys currently approved by the San Diego County Office of Education Joint Powers Authority." Lora Duzyk passed the request to Dan Shinoff. He wrote that the complete list consists of the following lawyers:

Dan Shinoff of Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz
Randy Winet of Winet, Winet, Patrick & Weaver
David Monks of Klinedinst P.C.

How can the lists be completely different? It apears that Shinoff is talking about lawyers who represent the JPA itself, not lawyers approved by the JPA to represent school districts.

Perhaps the JPA has a contract with Shinoff that hasn't run out yet.

Or perhaps the JPA has decided that it wants an unethical lawyers for it's own legal problems, but it will stop foisting those unethical lawyers on school districts.

Dan Shinoff appears to no longer be on the approved attorney list for SDCOE JPA

Update: I was mistaken when I first wrote this article.

While it is true that Daniel Shinoff is not on the Legal Services Council list of approved attorneys, it turns out that there is a secret list of lawyers, who have no written contracts with SDCOE-JPA, to whom SDCOE-JPA pays a secret amount of money each to represent school districts. SDCOE has ignored my public records requests for this information.

The following webpage lists SDCOE Legal Services Council-approved lawyers. The only thing I can't figure out is: Why is Ed Brand in charge of legal matters at SDCOE when he is no longer a superintendent?

List of approved SDCOE attorneys.

Previous SDCOE Superintendent Rudy Castruita knew about obstruction of justice and other wrongdoing by Daniel Shinoff, but was either unable and/or unwilling to challenge Shinoff. It turns out that Randy Ward, the new county Superintendent, is also covering his eyes and allowing wrongdoing to proceed unabated.

Cheryl Cox (the mayor-elect of Chula Vista), on the other hand, must pleased. Beginning in 2001, she did everything she could to support and protect Daniel Shinoff and his illegal activities. I suppose that's only fair, since he did everything he could to support and protect her illegal activities as board member of Chula Vista Elementary School District. Her most recent discussion of Shinoff's wrongdoing was in May of this year.

Did dirty tricks get Dan Shinoff "re-elected" in Grossmont?

Many school boards in the San Diego area allow lawyers to make their decisions.

Of course, they don't usually admit that the schools are being run from behind the scenes by people who weren't elected.

But public-relations director Bonnie Hall of MiraCosta College recently came right out and said it as clear as day:
“[The president of the college] was informed this morning by college attorney, Daniel Shinoff, that the vice president of instructional services will be on leave until further notice."

It was clearly NOT the college that made the personnel decision, but the lawyer.

It seems Dan Shinoff makes decisions for many districts. Some of his decisions are illegal. If people who were elected to run schools are going to ignore the law, and give Dan Shinoff millions of tax dollars to help them get away with breaking the law, those people need to be thrown out of office.

One such person is Grossmont Union High School District's Jim Kelly (who was re-elected, but lost his controlling board majority two days ago). On the day before the election, Jim Kelly's lapdog, Superintendent Terry Ryan, sent a phone message to parents in Santee to boost Kelly's candidacy.

Or was it Dan Shinoff who told Ryan to send the phone messages? Perhaps Shinoff feared that if Kelly lost his job, Shinoff might also be thrown out.

Dan Shinoff defends the message. He says it was meant to be informational.

Right. It was positive information about one member of the school board sent out in the hours before voting began.

Cheryl Cox, CVESD school board member and mayor-to-be of Chula Vista, came close recently to admitting that Dan Shinoff is in charge of CVESD, not the other way around.

As long as Dan Shinoff is in charge of their legal affairs, school board members will continue to pay him large amounts of money (which was intended for the education of children) for unethical and illegal actions aimed at keeping them in office.

Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz

Here's a link to my web page about Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz:

mauralarkins.com/stutzartianoshinoff

Update: These are the attorneys Cheryl Cox and I discussed in our phone call on May 15, 2006 (see above).

Castle Park Elementary teachers should not be sued for perjury

Should teachers from Chula Vista Elementary School District be sued for perjury?

Of course not.

But their lawyers should. These lawyers, including Daniel Shinoff and Kelly Minnehan of Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz, and Beverly Tucker of the California Teachers Association legal department, not only intimidated the teachers before their testimony, but instructed them to cover up the truth.

What teachers am I talking about? I'm talking about some of the teachers which the San Diego Union Tribune wrote about in articles and editorials published from the late summer of 2004 through February 2006. Editor Karen Winner and Don Sevren deceived readers into thinking that the problem was limited to the school principal, even though this principal came to the school after teachers had become embroiled in crimes and misdemeanors.

The teachers remind me of Osama Awadaliah, an honors student at San Diego State University, whom no one suspects of terrorism. NO ONE. But he was prosecuted for doing what Castle Park teachers did: denying being associated with criminals. Mr. Awadaliah had the misfortune to be acquainted with one of the 9/11 terrorists. He admits this. The US Attorney has prosecuted him because he denied being acquainted with a second terrorist. This is a silly way to spend tax dollars. No wonder Mr. Awadaliah's trial ened on May 4, 2006 with a hung jury. Even if he were guilty, he was merely doing what Castle Park teachers did: denying his association with criminals. In fact, officials admit that when they went to question him, he had no involvement in any crime. This is more than can be said for several Castle Park teachers.