Lawsuit Claims SDCOE Supt. Randy Ward Took Thousands in Illegal Pay

Lawsuit Claims County Superintendent Took Thousands in Illegal Pay

By Ashly McGlone

VOSD

July 8, 2016

 

A taxpayer group is suing county superintendent of schools Randy Ward, claiming he illegally paid himself as much as $100,000 in recent years, and doled out improper pay to his top staffers.

The lawsuit – filed Thursday in San Diego County Superior Court by the California Taxpayers Action Network, represented by San Diego attorney Cory Briggs – takes aim at several aspects of Ward’s compensation, including so-called “me-too” raises they say violate strict state conflict-of-interest laws.

Ward has served as the top executive of the San Diego County Office of Education since June 2006, and his pay has put him among the highest compensated K-12 public school employees in the state.

In June 2013, the elected five-member board added language to Ward’s contract that let him collect the same raises teachers get as long as he earned a satisfactory performance evaluation.

In June 2014, the board did away with the evaluation requirement and gave him the same raises as teachers automatically, without consideration of his performance. As a result, that year, Ward received a 5.1 percent raise worth $14,535, and has continued to receive guaranteed raises matching teachers ever since.

Me-too clauses can be legal, but California laws generally prohibit self-dealing to ensure that government officials’ responsibility to negotiate salaries in the best interest of taxpayers isn’t compromised by a personal financial incentive.

Since Ward negotiates with the teacher’s union and helps decide what raises teachers get, his actions could be considered self-dealing. If deemed illegal in court, at least $70,000 in payments could be voided and ordered repaid to the agency.

Another bone of contention raised in the lawsuit deals with an earlier raise granted to Ward before the “me-too” raises were put in place.

In 2008, the board gave Ward a 3.8 percent raise, but he postponed taking it. Then, two years later, he retroactively authorized it via an interoffice memorandum to the business department causing a windfall of up to $31,400.

Staff did not respond to questions asking whether the move could have spiked his pension – or improperly boosted his retirement benefits in violation of state rules. The impact on Ward’s pension is not discussed in the lawsuit.

The California Constitution generally prohibits non-union employees like Ward from getting paid long after work was performed, so the belated me-too pay bumps are also unconstitutional, the nonprofit taxpayer group says.

The lawsuit also names the County Office of Education’s longtime chief business officer, Lora Duzyk, claiming she too acted illegally and abused her office.

“Defendant Ward has no legal right to accept retroactive pay increases, and none of the Defendants has the legal authority to increase their compensation without first obtaining the BoE’s (board) approval,” the lawsuit says.

The group contends the board’s action adding me-too raises to Ward’s contract doesn’t mean the payments were legal.

A recent salary bump for Ward of 4 percent that took effect July 1 brought his base salary to $331,736 and is also being questioned by the group. Voice of San Diego also asked the County Office of Education for an explanation of the recent raise and has not yet heard back.

Ward just began the final year of a three-year superintendent employment contract that expires July 1, 2017.

Ward and Duzyk did not immediately respond to requests for comment...

Conflict of interest questions about SDCOE: Lisa Jensen writes checks to husband Chris, private investigator

From the San Diego Reader:

Going off the rails on a gravy train?

Alleged conflicts of interest within county office of education

By Dorian Hargrove 

San Diego Reader

April 20, 2015

...For more than 12 years, nearly $100,000 has been paid to private investigators from ESI International Incorporated, run by Robert Price. Much of that money has been paid to investigator Chris Jensen for surveillance and research on claims made to the agency.

Since 2003, Jensen's wife Lisa Jensen has worked as senior claims representative for the San Diego County Office of Education. One of Jensen's tasks was to write checks to outside firms, including ESI International.

According to public records obtained by the Reader, Jensen and her colleagues wrote checks to ESI for surveillance work in cases throughout the county, including investigation work in the lawsuit filed by the parents of Scott Eveland, a student and football player at Mission Hills High School in San Marcos who suffered a traumatic brain injury during a game. Eveland's family later settled the lawsuit for $4.375 million in 2012. 

Other documents show Chris Jensen, through ESI, charging the office of education and National City School District nearly $1200 to travel to the downtown Superior Court building to obtain copies of criminal files in an unrelated case. Jensen was also reimbursed for mileage driven and for photocopies made. 

In September 2013, as reported by the Reader, Sweetwater Unified School District's then-superintendant Ed Brand, who has since been accused of collecting thousands in pension benefits while simultaneously collecting a salary, asked his colleagues to pay ESI International over $65,000 to investigate employees. That request was later scrapped. 

A spokeswoman for the office of education says much of the time Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz had already hired ESI before the county agency's joint powers authority made any payments on certain claims. 

The office of education has since suspended future hiring in order to avoid any future potential conflicts.

“[The San Diego County Office of Education] has directed [Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz] to refrain from subcontracting to ESI on any and all [joint powers authority]-related cases in order to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest," writes spokesperson Music Watson...

Castle Park High School loses girls sports case; when will Randy Ward hire lawyers who advise schools to follow the law?

A judge has ruled against Castle Park High School regarding the equality of girls' sports facilities (see story from SDUT below).

Shame on San Diego County Office of Education-Joint Powers Authority and its member school districts for helping schools to ignore the law and, even worse, to engage in retaliation against those who complain about violations of law.

Instead of wasting tax dollars in endless litigation, SDCOE-JPA should have settled this case and many other cases. Even worse is SDCOE's protection of bad administrators by helping the school district retaliate against those who complained.  Students are hurt by the systematic removal of good school employees.  This Castle Park High case in Sweetwater Union High School District (see story below) is all too familiar.

The firing of the Castle Park High coach is reminiscent of
1) the Coach James "Ted" Carter case;
2) the Mary Anne Weegar case (also in Sweetwater; also involving Supt. Ed Brand);
3) the Rodger Harnett case.

In another example of unlawful retaliation, SDCOE recently sued this blogger for serving a deposition subpoena on Risk Management Executive Director Diane Crosier.

It's time for SDCOE Superintendent Randy Ward to hire lawyers who will guide schools toward compliance with the law, instead of lawyers who try to help schools get away with wrongdoing. But most importantly, the retaliation has to stop. A judge recently told Mr. Ward that he should conduct investigations of wrongdoing instead of firing whistle-blowers.



Judge rules school shows bias in sports
By Brent Schrotenboer
San Diego Union-Tribune
April 2, 2009

SOUTH BAY — A federal judge has ruled that Castle Park High School has allowed “significant gender-based disparity” in sports at the expense of female athletes.

In a summary judgment this week, U.S. District Court Judge M. James Lorenz ruled that Castle Park is not in compliance with Title IX, the 37-year-old federal law that forbids sex discrimination in any education program or activity receiving federal funds...

The remaining claims will go forward in court, including one that the district retaliated against the plaintiffs by firing their coach after they complained of discrimination.
The plaintiffs showed that while female enrollment at Castle Park was 45 percent to 50 percent since 1998, female participation in athletics was 33 percent to 41 percent during those years...

Over the past 11 years in the county, the Ramona school district, Mesa College and the Grossmont Union High School District have faced similar legal complaints involving Title IX and subpar softball facilities.

A little sunshine on the clever folks at the San Diego County Office of Education

I have a question for Doug Perkins and Rick Shea, candidates for San Diego County Office of Education District 5

Will you work to make sure that top administrators Diane Crosier and Dan Puplava of SDCOE report ALL the gifts they receive from companies doing business with SDCOE--and require them to explain who paid for their cross-county trips to be wined-and-dined by those companies?

Voice of San Diego education reporter Emily Alpert reported in 2010:

In response to questions from voiceofsandiego.org, the County Office wrote in an email that it believed Crosier had followed the gift rules. But despite repeated questions, it would not specifically explain why the trips could be legally left off the forms. In an email, Crosier said only that the trips were not included “due to discussion with legal counsel.”

I have personal experience with one of the companies visited by Crosier and Puplava, as recounted in the above article by Emily Alpert. The company was Life Insurance of the Southwest. I was signed up for an insurance policy with this company against my will. The name of the company was written in below, after I crossed it out. I was told the agent did not have an extra form so I would have to use the form you can see HERE. Note the scribbles. The agent also took $12,000 of my money and put it into an account where it would be locked in for years. I was fortunate enough to figure out the ruse before the lock-in date.

I expect that county officials--and union officials--get sweet deals from financial institutions in return for access to employees. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported, "Incredibly, Superintendent Randolph Ward himself bought an annuity from Puplava shortly after Ward began work in 2006."

And how about the teachers unions? Are they any better? Dan Puplava used to work for teachers unions, as he told Forbes magazine.

Who is more shameless in taking advantage of teachers, the school officials or the teachers unions? That's a hard question. I haven't figured out the answer yet.


FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE?

Convicted trustees out; SDCOE trustees in

SDCOE administrators and board members have assumed positions at Sweetwater: left to right in photo: SDCOE administrator Lora Duzyk, SDCOE Superintendent Randy War, SDCOE board members Susan Hartley, Mark Anderson, Sharon Jones, Lyn Neylon, Gregg Robinson. For some reason Sweetwater board member John McCann has been replaced, although he was NOT charged or convicted of crimes as his four colleagues were.

Bizarrely, the four convicted trustees of Sweetwater Union High School District--as well as trustee John McCann and Sweetwater administrators--had their seats taken over at the most recent board meeting by the five members of the current SDCOE board and top administrators at SDCOE. SDCOE got permission from the Superior Court to implement the takeover.

NOTE ON DOUG PERKINS AND RICK SHEA

Both of these candidates are insiders at SDCOE.

Before retiring, Rick Shea was Special Assistant to the County Superintendent of Schools.

Del Mar School District trustee Doug Perkins was involved in this shameful case. I attended the trial. The judge was amazed that the district thought it could play politics instead of fulfilling legal obligations. Perkins had been on the board since 2008. He supported and worked with SDCOE JPA attorney Dan Shinoff.

CANDIDATES ALICIA MUNOZ AND KATIE DEXTER ARE ALSO SILENT ON SECRECY AT SDCOE


I'd also like candidates Alicia Munoz and Katie Dexter (District 3) to answer the question at the top of this post.

UPDATE AND CORRECTION May 24, 2014:

I apologize to the La Mesa/Mt Helix Patch. It did NOT censor my comments.


Patch news websites

I now believe that the reason my comments seemed to disappear from a story by Helen and Jack Ofield was that Katie Dexter supporters decided to distract attention from the La Mesa Patch story and direct attention to the Lemon Grove Patch version of the same story. In fact, Tom Clabby erased his own comment from the La Mesa Patch and posted it on the Lemon Grove Patch. He apparently preferred to have his comment appear in better company.

It makes me wonder if perhaps some of Katie Dexter's supporters are opposed to seeing, hearing or speaking about problems at SDCOE.

When I wrote my comments I had no preference for either candidate in the Katie Dexter/Alicia Munoz race for SDCOE board. I didn't think that either one of them would be able to do anything about the secrecy and financial shenanigans at SDCOE. And I still don't have any preference.

Here's what made me reverse my unfair criticism of the La Mesa Patch: I just found a link to the article in the Town Square column on the home page.

ORIGINAL POST MAY 24,2014:

I made comments the other day on this La Mesa/Mt Helix Patch story about the race for a seat on the San Diego County Office of Education.

Then I discovered that the original La Mesa Patch story can not be found in the Patch archives and seems to have been erased from the Patch Facebook page. Google search results don't include the story.

But clearly the plan wasn't to get rid of the story itself. The exact same article has been published by the Lemon Grove Patch (without my comments, of course). Google readily produces a link to the Lemon Grove Patch article. It turns out that the La Mesa Patch story still exists; the link on my blog still works.

So I'm doing an experiment. I posted some new comments on the Lemon Grove Patch this morning, and we'll see what happens. Here are my new comments:

[Comments by] Maura Larkins May 24, 2014:

...The entire story seems to have disappeared, along with two comments I made regarding San Diego County Office of Education. This reminds me of the local Clear Channel billboards that were taken down after two days because they correctly stated that Carla Keehn is the only candidate for Judge of the Superior Court Office 20 who has not been convicted of a crime. Of course, I didn't pay $14,000 to publish my statements.

Maura Larkins May 24, 2014 at 09:27 am
CORRECTION AND APOLOGY TO THE PATCH: I believe that the La Mesa/Mt Helix Patch did NOT try to censor my comments. Instead, I think that Katie Dexter supporters worked to remove attention from the La Mesa Patch story that carried my comments and direct attention to the Lemon Grove Patch version of the same story. In fact, Tom Clabby erased his own comment from the La Mesa Patch and posted it on the Lemon Grove Patch. He apparently preferred to have his comment appear in better company. It makes me wonder if perhaps some of Katie Dexter's supporters are opposed to seeing, hearing or speaking about problems at SDCOE. When I wrote my comments I had no preference for either candidate in the Katie Dexter/Alicia Munoz race for SDCOE board. I didn't think that either one of them would be able to do anything about the secrecy and financial shenanigans at SDCOE. And I still don't have any preference.

The most common problem in public entities is not blatant corruption such as the outrageous salaries ($560,000 for the assistant City Manager) of officials in Bell, California, but the money that gets channeled behind the scenes. Millions of dollars get moved around, and the public doesn't know about the connections and motivations that are guiding the transfers. Voice of San Diego reporter Emily Alpert was investigating SDCOE when she suddenly went silent, and then got fired. SDCOE exempts Diane Crosier (the director of Risk Management; also, Dan Puplava's boss) from having to disclose the gifts she receives. Why don't we have transparency in government at SDCOE?


SDCOE Risk Management Director Diane Crosier and her close associate Dan Puplava work with AIG

SDCOE has silenced its critics.

When Scott Dauenhauer revealed that SDCOE fringe benefits manager Dan Puplava [who is still employed by SDCOE] was getting at least $355,000 in commissions from AIG while working for the taxpayers, Dauenhauer was sued by Diane Crosier and Dan Puplava.

I went down to the courthouse and read the pleadings in the case.

The SDCOE managers claimed that Dauenhauer didn't know that what he said was true. I'm not kidding. They didn't claim he said something false. They claimed that he didn't actually know that what he said was true. Since he couldn't afford to keep paying an attorney to fight the case, he settled. SDCOE has also tried very hard to silence me. SDCOE lawyers had more success with Grossmont student representative Rick Walker, who obligingly shut down his website.

My other comment was about the MiraCosta College scandal, in which SDCOE's favorite law firm got paid $1.3 million to investigate $305 of water stolen and used to water palm trees. (After investing all that taxpayer money, MiraCosta let the palm trees die. It was never about water or palm trees. It was all about power and politics.) Sounds a little bit like Bell, California, doesn't it? And if our media silences discussions about things like this, how can the taxpayers protect themselves?

[Comment by} Helen Ofield May 24, 2014 at 12:22 PM

Maura - I was hunting around for the coverage and thought it was "just me" when I couldn't find a comment I'd sent to you. I think the Clabbys had a little difficulty posting and, like them, I wouldn't know how to erase something if I tried. Really, there is no conspiracy here, just well-meaning people trying to navigate the Internet.

Maura Larkins May 24, 2014 at 04:30 pm

Hi Helen,
If you look at the line below your post you will see the words "Recommend...Reply...Delete". Just click on the word "delete". It looks like Tom Clabby found it. I got an automatic notice telling me about his new comment soon after I posted my comments. Then I got another automatic notice saying his comment was a blank.

I wonder what Katie Dexter and Alicia Munoz think of all the Dan Puplava shenanigans as well as the other SDCOE cases and the secrecy surrounding gifts to Diane Crosier. It seems that all we get from either candidate is political posturing and platitudes. Wouldn't this be a good time for one or both of them to address problems inside SDCOE?

It makes no difference who wins the East County seat on the San Diego County Office of Education board--Katie Dexter or Alicia Munoz

May 20, 2014 UPDATE: This post became deeply ironic one day after it was published.

See: Who's replacing the four corrupt Sweetwater trustees who were forced to resign? Four people who have controlled the legal shenanigans of Sweetwater for years

Four SDCOE board members are replacing the four members of the Sweetwater Union High School District board who were forced to resign due to corruption convictions. See all posts on South Bay Indictments.

Katie Dexter: The Right Choice for San Diego County School Board
by Jack & Helen Ofield
Patch
May 16, 2014

Alicia Munoz has insulted more than 25,000 residents of Lemon Grove with her recent hit piece attacking our 12-year, very effective Lemon Grove School Board member Katie Dexter. Munoz and her supporters in the American Federation of Teachers Local 1931 trashed our school district and everyone who serves it and, by extension, our city as a whole.

She scorns Dexter's work in business (Sam's Club, GMAC) and casts herself as a "professor." She works in the community college system where there is no such academic rank. Her occasional lecturing at SDSU does not make her a "professor." Thus has she also insulted the academic community with her fake title.

Because Munoz and her handlers are ignorant of Lemon Grove's stirring history and of its successful efforts to educate a highly diverse population (some 22 languages and dialects spoken in our schools), they are unaware that the Lemon Grove School District is in the vanguard of classroom technology, interdisciplinary learning and STEM curricula, art and music (we've had a music program since 1933), healthy diets for students and, not least, construction in 2013 of a beautiful, joint use library that is a runaway success story in the county library system.

Munoz' absence of judgment, sensitivity and community research, and acceptance of her union's gutter tactics make her a poor choice for County School Board. She should withdraw from the race now.

By contrast, Dexter's widely-respected grasp of school financing, ability to forge public-private partnerships to help our schools, long-time service to local, county and state education organizations, volunteer service as a mother and board member in community groups, respect for teachers and classified employees alike, and managerial skills have won her a who's who of support -- Supervisor Dianne Jacob, La Mesa Mayor Art Madrid, Lemon Grove Mayor Mary Sessom, Brian Marshall, Superintendent of the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District, Kevin Ogden, Superintendent of the Julian School District, CSEA Chapter 568, Lemon Grove City Council members Howard Cook and Jerry Jones, and the list goes on to literally thousands of voters inside and outside of Lemon Grove.

...Jack is an Emeritus Professor of Film and former Filmmaker in Residence at SDSU and Fellow of the American Film Institute, and Helen is a writer and member of the San Diego County Historic Site Board and president of the Lemon Grove Historical Society...

Sincerely,
Jack and Helen Ofield


Comments

Maura Larkins
No matter which one of these candidates wins, the SDCOE board (as well as the superintendent, Randy Ward) will continue to be a rubber stamp for Diane Crosier and her stable of lawyers.


Jack & Helen Ofield
Maura - They will have a fighter in Katie Dexter. Until we begin to place people of Katie's caliber on that board, it will be business as usual.


Maura Larkins
Hi Helen,
Public institutions in Lemon Grove exhibit higher integrity than most of the other public entities in San Diego County that I'm familiar with, but SDCOE (and SDCOE-JPA) are connected to powerful people--including the folks at AIG (the insurance company that got over $180 billion during the financial crisis).

No candidate would be able to make the slightest dent in the corruption.

Remember the MiraCosta College scandal? Remember board member Judy Stratton? No, of course you don't--because she resigned right after she spoke out about corruption.

You can't make the lawyers mad and remain on the board.

Maura Larkins

The AFT attack on a middle and working-class community reminds me of an attitude I've seen among many teachers. They prefer working in upscale areas where the kids are born on third base; the test scores make the teachers think that they themselves hit a triple! (I'd like to acknowledge the late, great Molly Ivins as the originator of the quip that I'm paraphrasing here.)

San Diego County Office of Education advertises for Bridgepoint

SDCOE Supt. Randolph Ward seems inappropriately enthusiastic about private education company Bridgepoint


Bridgepoint's Jane McAuliffe seems to have charmed Mr. Ward

According to the date of the article below, San Diego County Office of Education published its Bridgepoint Educaton promotion long after Bridgepoint's failure to provide appropriate service was exposed.

The last paragraph of the SDCOE article below is clearly an advertisement. It reminds me of 2006 when SDCOE published a campaign advertisement for Bonnie Dumanis. I wonder if Randy Ward will get a job with Bridgepoint when he ends his career of service to the, uh, public. Who wrote this piece, Randy? One of Jane McAuliffe's assistants?

One must suspect that the program that Bridgepoint is offering to teachers is no better than what it offers to everyone else. Bridgepoint is clearly devoted to money and politics, not knowledge and understanding.

Why didn't Randy Ward and SDCOE simply get the best teachers in the county to teach the other teachers? Unlike the folks at Bridgepoint, those teachers know exactly what is needed.

Perhaps it is because SDCOE has absolutely no idea who the best teachers are, since there is no effective evaluation system in our schools.

I would love to know how was this program was chosen.

San Diego Teachers Benefit from Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program
September 6, 2013
by SDCOE

Thanks to the Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program, many San Diego teachers returned to class this week with additional skills to add to their classroom experience. The program, offered in partnership with the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), awarded 200 scholarships for educators to attend the SDCOE’s online and blended Leading Edge teacher certification course. ​

“Online programs will be a key component of education moving forward and it’s vital for teachers to be fluent in the online modality,” said Dr. Jane McAuliffe, executive vice president and chief academic officer at Bridgepoint Education. “With the Bridgepoint Fellowship, we are helping teachers to understand the technology that is available to them. We all benefit when teachers are given the proper tools to educate students.”

The Leading Edge Certification is a national program to prepare instructional leaders for online and blended learning. Launched in 2011, the certification guides educators through rigorous and engaging curriculum based on the national standards for online teaching. The Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program consisted of a $100,000 donation, which represented 200 scholarships for the Leading Edge Certification.

“In most school districts, budgets for professional development opportunities have been cut significantly, and many teachers are faced with the dilemma of spending personal funds on professional development or simply going without,” said county superintendent of schools Randy Ward. “The Bridgepoint Fellowships remove the major funding obstacles for teachers and districts, and we’re very grateful to Bridgepoint for stepping up.”

Dr. McAuliffe and Dr. Ward were featured in a live, in-studio television interview on KUSI’s Good Morning San Diego Early Edition program on Tuesday, Sept. 3. The two discussed the Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program, the Leading Edge Certification, and how local teachers are learning more effective ways to incorporate technology in the classroom.

About Bridgepoint Education

Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (NYSE:BPI) improves the way individuals learn. By harnessing creativity, knowledge and proprietary technologies, such as Constellation, Thuze and Waypoint Outcomes, Bridgepoint Education has re-engineered the modern student experience with innovative solutions that advance learning. Its academic institutions – Ashford University and University of the Rockies – embody the contemporary college experience. Ashford University offers associate's, bachelor's and master's degree programs while University of the Rockies offers master’s and doctoral degree programs. Both provide progressive online platforms, as well as traditional campuses located in Clinton, Iowa (Ashford University), and Colorado Springs, Colorado (University of the Rockies). For more information about Bridgepoint Education, visit www.bridgepointeducation.com or call Shari Winet Rodriguez, vice president of Public Relations, at 858-668-2580.

Mistrial declared in Fallbrook Union Eementary School District case regarding electronic document destruction

UPDATE Feb. 26, 2015: A jury awarded Elaine Allyn over $1 million for retaliation by Fallbrook Union Elementary School District when this case was finally allowed to reach a conclusion in February 2015 after more than a year of delays.


UPDATE April 2014: A new trial in the Allyn v. Fallbrook case began on
April 21, 2014 with Judge Jacqueline Stern--and was stopped
after four days and rescheduled for July 25, 2014.

Judge Stern had no need to declare a mistrial in the Allyn v. Fallbrook Schools case in October 2013 (see story below). When one juror couldn't continue with the trial, the judge could have let the remaining alternate juror take his or her place. And Judge Stern could have insisted that school district attorneys expedite their questioning instead of letting it drag on for hours and hours--three times as long as plaintiff's counsel. 

SMOKELESS DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION?

Elaine Allyn claims she was fired in retaliation for her objections to the destruction of district electronic documents.

This reminds me of the recent burning of documents in San Ysidro School District.Justice.



Traditional document destruction:
a few bags of shredded documents escaped
the burning spree in San Ysidro


SDCOE board members
Mark Anderson, Susan Hartley, Lyn Neylong, Gregg Robinson and Sharon Jones

The liability insurance carrier for most San Diego County school districts, San Diego County Office of Educuation JPA, is deeply involved in the legal strategies used by districts in lawsuits such as a motion for San Ysidro Schools asking the court to forbid any mention of a cash handoff to the superintendent, destroyed documents or criminal charges. SDCOE doesn't think the court--or the public--needs to know what's going on.

It seems that Fallbrook's legal team wanted a mistrial in the Allyn case so Human Resources Director Dennis Bixler could get his story straight for the next trial.


Fallbrook's Human Resources Director Dennis Bixler

And there might also be another reason Fallbrook Union Elementary School District wanted a mistrial: to create financial pressure on the plaintiff so she'll settle for a small amount and then maintain silence about what happened at Fallbrook.

San Diego County Office of Education JPA has deep pockets so it can keep paying attorneys no matter how many times the case is retried, but I doubt that Elaine Allyn has such deep pockets. Is the district abusing the court system to force her to settle for less? The school district had the nerve to file a motion asking for attorney fees--from the Plaintiff!


Elaine Allyn

ORIGINAL POST:

"'Ten of the 11 jurors said they felt like it was looking like a case of retaliation (against Allyn),' said Curran. 'They said they felt Bixler and Singh were not credible, and that Singh also came across as rehearsed. They said they felt Price wasn’t believable and they hadn’t seen anything that proved [Allyn] had violated any processes.'

Curran claimed one significant incident during the proceedings was noted by the jurors. 'Bixler impeached himself dozens of times by changing his testimony on a critical issue in the trial.' The matter involved whether or not Allyn had complained to Bixler that she was being asked to delete district archives.

Mistrial declared in Allyn vs. FUESD
Debbie Ramsey
Village News
October 24th, 2013

On Monday, Oct. 21, Judge Jacqueline Stern declared a mistrial in the case of Allyn vs. Fallbrook Union Elementary School District (FUESD) at Vista Superior Court, citing that the proceeds would exceed the time limit previously established for the trial. The trial had just begun its seventh day out of the 10 days slated for it. Allyn, the district’s former information technology director and an employee of 18 years, claimed she was wrongfully terminated by administrators in 2012 in an act of retaliation and that the district violated public policy by misusing public funds.

"The jury in this case had been scheduled through Thursday, Oct. 24, and the court determined that the case would not conclude until Nov. 7, resulting in the judge declaring a mistrial," said FUESD defense attorney Gil Abed of Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz, APC.

Allyn’s attorney Michael Curran, of Curran & Curran Law, posted the blame for the mistrial firmly on the defense counsel.

"I think it is reprehensible the way they wasted everyone’s time and resources," said Curran, who claimed FUESD attorneys "intentionally" prolonged examination of their defendants in order to effect a mistrial. Curran said he "repeatedly objected to the defense counsel’s undue consumption of time."

FUESD’s defendants, Dennis Bixler, Candace Singh, Bob Price, and associate superintendent Raymond Proctor were the individuals under fire by the plaintiff’s counsel. In an earlier interview, Curran said, "This case is really about an abuse of power, a breach of public trust, and a cover up that included retaliation by [Allyn’s] bosses."

Candace Singh, Superintendent

Curran cited examples of what he called the "excessive" time used in the early days of the trial. "We examined Bixler for 2.5 hours, compared to their 6.5 hours; we examined superintendent Singh for 2 hours, compared to their 6 hours; and we questioned the district’s investigator Price for 2.5 hours, compared to their 7.5 hours," he said.

"Then the district and their counsel claimed they need another two weeks to put on their defense case," said Curran. "The judge was forced to declare mistrial after jurors indicated they could not stay longer then the court originally cleared."

"Two jurors would have encountered problems with their jobs; one had to report for military duty on a certain date," Curran explained.

Prior to the mistrial being declared, Curran said in his opinion, "The case was going along very well and we were demonstrating that Ms. Allyn’s termination was wrongful and retaliatory; the evidence was unfolding just as we had planned."

Conversely, Abed said "As officers of the court, neither Mr. Shinoff (law firm partner) nor I will try a case in the press and will only litigate our cases before the court. We are very disappointed that we were not able to complete this trial and show the jury the abundance of evidence justifying the dismissal of a management employee in the district."

Judge Stern ordered a judicial settlement conference be set for Dec. 12 in the case, which will be presided over by Judge Thomas Nugent, to see if the parties can be assisted in resolving the case before scheduling a new trial.

"[The district] could settle with Ms. Allyn and they should," said Curran. "If an acceptable settlement is not reached, then a case management conference will be set for January, after which a new trial date will be ordered."

Following the dismissal of the jurors, Curran said he had an opportunity to speak with 11 of the 12 to gauge their opinion of the case.

"Ten of the 11 jurors said they felt like it was looking like a case of retaliation (against Allyn)," said Curran. "They said they felt Bixler and Singh were not credible, and that Singh also came across as rehearsed. They said they felt Price wasn’t believable and they hadn’t seen anything that proved [Allyn] had violated any processes."

Curran claimed one significant incident during the proceedings was noted by the jurors. "Bixler impeached himself dozens of times by changing his testimony on a critical issue in the trial." The matter involved whether or not Allyn had complained to Bixler that she was being asked to delete district archives.

"That is smoking gun evidence and we knew he was being told to change his testimony," said Curran. "We showed him what was in his notes and he had to go back to his original testimony."

Abed said his respect continues for the jury trial process. "A trial is a pursuit of the truth to a jury. We look forward to a complete vindication of all the allegations made against the district."

Curran said he felt the situation leading to the mistrial was disrespectful.

"It is a terrible, continued injustice to Ms. Allyn and 12 very conscientious jurors who listened to the evidence/case for seven days only to have their time wasted by the district and their lawyers," he said.

Curran said other matters have come to light during his handling of Allyn’s case that he feels should be investigated.

"We intend on providing a complete report and demanding the San Diego Office of Education and California Office of Education investigate these matters," said Curran.

COMMENT

...Teri Heyneman-Myers

Oct 28, 2013
I wanted to explain about the jury and the question about the availability of the alternates. The first juror was used when a selected juror had conflicts. There was only one other alternate juror available for the trial Well...the trial was going to extend two weeks beyond the original AGREED upon date. By the way...this was not Allyn's attorney's idea. When a poll took place asking which jurors could remain the answer was obvious. This was a shame that the dedicated jurors had wasted their time.

Apparently it is common for the jurors to speak after a trial. As Mr. Curran said in the VN article Ms. Allyn was favored.

My sister, Elaine Allyn (Heyneman) and I have grown up in Fallbrook. The FUESD style of politics need to change. I think a bit of pruning needs to take place and I do not mean trees. Let's begin at the top shall we?!...

[Maura Larkins comment: When you say "begin at the top" do you mean the pruning should start with Diane Crosier and Randy Ward and the board at SDCOE?]

COMMENT

...[by] WasThere

Oct 28, 2013
I observed one day of that trial and it was a joke. The defense legal team so obviously was burning time on the clock, it was painful to watch. I heard about every job Candace Singh ever had, what she did there, why her role(s) were important, who she worked with.........

This line of questioning by her own legal team went on for hours!! The judge was useless and could have "overseen" this trial via skype. Every time there was an objection (which was literally about every 30 seconds) she had to go back to the minutes because she had no clue what was objected to.
Elaine Allyn on left
FALLBROOK: Ex-tech director says school district officials ordered her to destroy emails
By GARY WARTH
nctimes.com
June 17, 2012

The former director of educational technology for the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District has filed a $972,000 civil lawsuit against the district, alleging she was wrongfully fired after being falsely accused of snooping through emails.

The suit, filed May 31 by Encinitas resident Elaine Allyn, includes allegations of discrimination, harassment, retaliation and wasteful spending. She also claims that a district investigation into a teacher suspected of videotaping students was hampered because an administrator had ordered emails deleted, inadvertently destroying possible evidence.

Besides the $972,000 cited in the lawsuit, Allyn's attorney Susan Curran said her client also will be seeking lost past and future income, lost benefits, attorney fees and punitive damages.

Dennis Bixler, assistant superintendent of human resources, said the school board meet in closed session last month to discuss the claim Allyn had filed as a prerequisite to the lawsuit. Trustees rejected part of the claim and sent other parts back without action because they were untimely, meaning they had happened too far in the past, he said.

In the complaint, Allyn said she had been a district employee for 18 years and was earning about $109,000 a year when she was fired in May.

According to the lawsuit, Allyn had been subjected to six years of harassment from Ray Proctor, associate superintendent of business services at the district, who had become vindictive after learning she had complained that he made an inappropriate comment about her in a Cabinet meeting in 2005.

Proctor declined to comment for this story, directing all inquiries to Bixler.

According to the lawsuit, Proctor had said Allyn must have "slept with the vendor" to get the district its good cellphone contract.

Allyn said in the lawsuit that the human resources department ignored her complaint about Proctor, but her accusation was leaked to him. For the next six years, according to the suit, he was overly critical of her, giving her smaller budgets than her male counterparts and denying her staff assistance.

Also in the lawsuit, Proctor is said to have asked Allyn in early August 2011 to wipe out or cleanse the district's entire electronic data imaging from its archive system and to wipe out all emails that were in the trash bin of the active system.

The district hired Candy Singh as the new superintendent last August. According to the complaint, Singh also requested Allyn delete old imaging and emails, and Allyn said she again refused because it was a violation of state and federal laws.

At Singh's and Proctor's insistence, however, Allyn later hired a consultant to help dismantle the archive system, according to the lawsuit.

Last January, the lawsuit continues, Allyn was asked to assist in the investigation against a teacher suspected of videotaping students. Allyn said she scanned the video camera and found nothing incriminating, but was unable to provide a backlog of the teacher's emails, as requested by private investigator Bob Price, because there were few to read since Proctor and Singh had order a change to the archive system.

According to the lawsuit, Proctor asked Allyn for an administrative password to access additional log files on the computer system.

After she complied, Allyn said she was called in to Proctor's office and accused of illegally accessing and reading employee emails.

Allyn said the accusation was unfounded, as employee emails are not considered private and district policy gives her the right and ability to access emails and electronic files without prior notice or consent.

Bixler, however, said that while the emails are not considered private, and supervisors have the right to look into the emails of subordinates, Allyn was looking into the emails of her supervisors.

According to the lawsuit, Allyn said she was accused of looking into Singh's emails because she knew about complaints against the superintendent, including how $30,000 had been spent on new office furniture and remodeling. Allyn said in the suit that she knew of the complaints about the spending because people in the district were talking about them, not because she snooped in emails.

But according to a district notice outlining existing causes to discipline Allyn, which Bixler signed April 12 and provided to the North County Times, the investigator hired by the district found other indications that Allyn was looking into the superintendent's and other administrators' emails.

In her lawsuit, Allyn denied ever looking into the superintendent's emails.

[Maura Larkins's comment: Maybe the Allyn v. Fallbrook case should be called Falliburton due to its similarities to a case in which a Halliburton manager pleaded guilty to destroying documents after the BP Gulf oil spill.

] See also the early articles from 2012 about this case.

A school official’s unbelievably racist texts

Many people in top jobs at school districts have no business being there. Politics, not professionalism or even good will, rules most school districts. The Pennsylvania school superintendent in the story below was obviously very good at putting on a hail-fellow-well-met facade to hide the sickness within.

Now how do we go about replacing the other corrupt, callous and incompetent school officials? It's hard, because when administrators get in trouble, usually the problem is covered up, and they're sent on to another district with a warm recommendation. Also, since school firings are so often politically motivated, there's a good chance that the fired person is an excellent employee. Obviously, the people in power want to keep playing their game. If problems were revealed, then they'd have to clean them up. Perhaps that is why San Diego County Office of Education and Chula Vista Elementary School District are supporting the effort to shut down this blog by paying taxpayer dollars to Stutz law firm to quash subpoenas.


A school official’s unbelievably racist texts
Tip to bigots: Don't text on your work-issued phone
By Mary Elizabeth Williams
Salon.com
Sep 24, 2013

Not your best moment, Keystone State. Just last week, Pennsylvania was in the news when gun-loving small town police chief Mark Kessler’s expletive-infused rants against “libtards” went viral – and cost him his job. Now, Coatesville Area School District superintendent Richard Como and Director of Athletics and Activities Jim Donato have gained national attention for their abrupt departures from their positions – and the slew of hateful and racist messages discovered on their district-issued cell phones. Board president Neil Campbell has called the texts “sickening and obviously unacceptable.”

The incendiary messages, which all date from this past June, are a regular cavalcade of bigotry. And a source told the Philadelphia Inquirer Monday that “What has been made public represents a fraction of the messages between the men.” In one exchange, the two riff on how “All should have whatever first names they want… then last name is [n-word]!” Over the course of their messages, they also speculate in details on other people’s sex lives, discuss a “Jew red haired ESL” teacher, “that ape,” “cotton pickers” and a “skinny bitch,” among others. Intriguingly, there’s also a reference to a “MAJOR sneak” who “made at least 1500 – 2000 on kickback.”

But to be honest, my favorite is the damming understatement that “This fucking phone! No idea how to work!”

A district IT worker allegedly discovered the messages last month while transferring data to a new device. Superintendent Como announced his retirement shortly after on the district’s Web site – a letter that now appears to have been quietly scrubbed. Director Jim Donato resigned a few days later. On the District’s site now, there’s a new letter from Acting Superintendent Angelo Romaniello, Jr., acknowledging “inappropriate and racial comments… made by people we trusted.” The Times-Herald reports that “the departures were the direct result of discoveries found on Donato’s cell phone.” And because of questions regarding the extent to which the District was aware of the texts and whether appropriate protocols were followed in Como and Donato’s departures, the District Attorney’s office is now conducting a criminal investigation.

According to records obtained by reporters Michael N. Price and Kristina Scala, Como’s 2010 salary was $192,897 – not a bad income for someone with a barely disguised loathing for the students and faculty he works with. But a comfortable salary can’t buy basic human decency. And for that matter, it definitely can’t provide a working understanding that if you’re going to be a hateful jackass, you should really consider whether you want a text record of that hateful jackassery – or least whether you want to be mouthing off on the equipment your employer issued you.

There is so much that’s contemptible about the exchanges between Como and Donato – the simmering, near constant anger they display, the grotesque, dehumanizing way they view pretty much anybody who isn’t a white man (to their credit, though, I didn’t notice any gay slurs in the lot) and the jaw-dropping amount of arrogance and privilege it takes to speak that hatefully, that freely. But what stinks most is the betrayal it represents, the lie that their jobs were. The disgust they had for their own kids. “They were friendly to our faces,” Zhaqweyza Armstrong, a 16 year-old Coatesville High junior, told the Inquirer Monday, “and then they talked about us behind our backs.”

Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub.

Diane Crosier is still at San Diego County Office of Education--and so is the infamous Dan Puplava

Diane Crosier still works at SDCOE.

Update Sept. 3, 2013 8:52 a.m.:

Wow, I really messed up on this story. My information about Diane Crosier and Dan Puplava leaving SDCOE was incorrect. But I'll tell you exactly how the misunderstanding took place, and what I have learned about Crosier and Puplava.

1. I suggested that an acquaintance call Diane Crosier to get some information. The acquaintance told me "dcrosier@sdcoe.net doesn't work anymore." I thought someone at SDCOE told her that Diane Crosier at SDCOE didn't work anymore. Instead, it was the email address that didn't work anymore. My bad. I sincerely apologize.

2. Did SDCOE give false information when it said last year that Puplava was no longer in a supervisory position?

Office of Ed manager was fined, suspended [by FINRA]
FINRA found issues with his side business
By Jeff McDonald
SDUT
May 18, 2012

The official in charge of a $270 million public investment fund for 6,400 educators in the region was fined $7,000 last year and had his broker’s license suspended for three months. He retained his official post.

Daniel Puplava, 50, manages the deferred compensation program for the San Diego County Office of Education. He has simultaneously worked for private brokerage firms, one of which was fined $300,000 in January for failing to supervise him and guard against conflicts of interest.

The fines were issued by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the nonprofit regulatory agency that was reviewing the matter when the U-T wrote about Puplava’s dual roles in 2009.

At the time, Puplava worked for AIG Financial Advisors of Phoenix. He now works for his brother’s company, Puplava Financial Services of San Diego.

...“Mr. Puplava is no longer in a supervisory position and this behavior is not acceptable to SDCOE under SDCOE policy or practice,” the office said in a statement.

Puplava’s pay remained the same when he was removed from a supervisory position, the office said....

I talked to a couple of people at SDCOE this morning, and they insisted that Mr. Puplava is a manager with staff that he supervises. I suspect that when SDCOE claimed that Puplava wasn't in a supervisory position, they meant that he was no longer illegally having subordinates sign financial documents. But I believe his staff continued to do exactly what he wanted.



from Dan Puplava's website

3. I visited Dan Puplava's website and it does not look like the website of an administrator whose intent is to help public school teachers arrange retirement benefits through a public agency. Why is Mr. Puplava posing with his motorcycles on the street and on top of mountains? And while the folks at SDCOE tell me that Mr. Puplava only gives trainings to SDCOE staff, his website says otherwise.

The website seems to be trying to bring in business:

Seminars and Workshops

All of these achievements are impressive in and of themselves, but what Dan is really known for are his educational workshops. He has spent years delivering and fine-tuning these financial workshops, in San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial County. They include his Comprehensive Financial Planning workshop as well as seminars and workshops focusing specifically on the current economy.

His most recent workshop, focusing on current economic trends, is called “The Coming Federal and California Debt Time Bomb.” The workshop has proven well received among those who have participated in it. For example, Dr. Ed Brand, current Sweetwater Union High School District Superintendent, says “Mr. Puplava’s economic foresight has helped many.”

ORIGINAL POST: Diane Crosier is no longer at SDCOE

[There are two errors in the following post: Crosier and Puplava are still at SDCOE. But all the rest of the information is correct, and begs the question: Why are Crosier and Puplava still at SDCOE?]


Strangely, Diane Crosier is still listed on this page as Executive Director of the Risk Management Department as of September 2, 2013. I assume she retired, but I wonder why Randy Ward didn't announce it, and announce Crosier's replacement. Perhaps there are power struggles going on over on Linda Vista Road.

I should have suspected that Diane Crosier was gone from SDCOE when I found out this morning that Randall Winet's law firm is handling the MUNSHOWER VS. GROSSMONT UNION HIGH SCHOOL and JAN BRANNEN case.

Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz can't be happy about this. It really looked like Dan Shinoff and Diane Crosier were going to continue to rule the roost at SDCOE, even after Emily Alpert and Rodger Hartnett exposed the lopsided system at SDCOE-JPA for assigning cases to lawyers.

Crosier and her two Dans (Shinoff and Puplava) seemed able to kick all opponents to the curb. SDCOE decided Ms. Crosier wasn't required to report her gifts. Crosier and Shinoff and Puplava punished and silenced Scott Dauenhauer for revealing that Puplava received $355,000 in one year from finanical institutions while he was a public employee. And in October 2007 Crosier and Shinoff worked together on a defamation suit against this blogger (Maura Larkins) that is still going on.


SDCOE board: Mark Anderson, Susan Hartley, Lyn Neylong, Gregg Robinson and Sharon Jones

For years Susan Hartley, Sharon Jones and Mark Anderson have been supporting Diane Crosier's and Dan Puplav's shenanigans. Neylong and Robinson are newer on the job.

Did the SDCOE board suddenly become concerned about ethics? More likely it was the glare of publicity that concerned them.

After all, it wasn't until FINRA suspended Dan Puplava's broker license that SDCOE suddenly discovered some long-lost "SDCOE policy and practice" that forbade Puplava's actions. They supported Crosier and Puplava during a defamation suit against whistleblower Scott Dauenhauer that argued that Dauenhauer didn't know that what he was saying was true! Puplava claimed in the press that he shared the $355,000 with other brokers, but he never produced any such evidence in court.

I went to the courthouse and read the case file. I was shocked to see that Crosier and Puplava tacitly admitted the truth of what Dauenhaur was saying--but they insisted that Dauenhhaur could not have figured it out, even though he had a lot of documentation. In other words, they claimed that even though he hit on the truth, he didn't really KNOW it was true. They refused to admit that he was smarter than they wanted him to be. I believe Scott Dauenhaur would have prevailed, but he couldn't continue to pay a lawyer for the drawn-out legal battle, so he settled.

Why didn't the SDCOE board act sooner on "SDCOE policy and practice"? Because it has long been SDCOE's "policy and practice" to conceal the truth about wrongdoing in schools and at SDCOE itself. In fact, I don't see any evidence that Puplava was punished in any way by SDCOE.


Crosier's sidekick Dan Puplava is also gone, apparently since fall 2012. A search for "puplava" turned up only one result on the SDCOE website, and it seemed to be an old page.

Things were starting to go south for Mr. Puplava in May of 2012:

Office of Ed manager was fined, suspended
FINRA found issues with his side business
By Jeff McDonald
SDUT
May 18, 2012

...“Mr. Puplava is no longer in a supervisory position and this behavior is not acceptable to SDCOE under SDCOE policy or practice,” the office said in a statement.

Puplava’s pay remained the same when he was removed from a supervisory position, the office said....


SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL
Feckless, hapless, clueless
Handling of county schools conflict of interest is unacceptable

March 29, 2009

In the grand scheme of things, the San Diego County Office of Education is something of an obscure bit player. It provides administrative support to local school districts and runs continuation schools for students with disciplinary problems. This fringe status, however, does not excuse it from having to meet basic standards of good government.

That absolutely hasn't happened in the case of Daniel Puplava, who manages the office's retirement program while also working as a private broker who sells investments to administrators and teachers served by the program. This is prohibited, according to a 2008 opinion from the state Attorney General's Office.

But even with such an opinion, it is obvious that this is an unacceptable conflict of interest. While a full-time school office employee, Puplava lined up fellow government employees for his private brokerage and used his government phone as his primary contact number. Incredibly, Superintendent Randolph Ward himself bought an annuity from Puplava shortly after Ward began work in 2006.

Now Ward is refusing to answer questions on the matter. Board trustees John Witt and Mark Anderson also are stonewalling. Trustee Sharon Hartley says it's much ado about nothing, evidently concluding that the county schools office is not answerable to Attorney General Jerry Brown. Board President Sharon Jones pretends she's not allowed to comment on the matter because of “personnel” rules. Only trustee Jerry Rindone shows the appropriate level of dismay.

A respected high school principal and Chula Vista councilman before being elected to the county schools board, Rindone understands this isn't how government is supposed to work.

That doesn't hold for Ward, Witt, Anderson, Hartley and Jones. Their “what, me worry?” approach is an embarrassment.

[Maura Larkins comment: Jerry Rindone was the only SDCOE board member who wanted to look into these matters, and he's long gone. The other board members, as well as Superintendent Randy Ward and Asst. Supt. Lora Duzyk have fully supported all the goings-on in the Business Department... I'll try to find out what happened.]


...APPARENTLY RANDALL WINET'S NEW LAW FIRM WILL BE GETTING MORE WORK

His new firm is called Winet, Patrick, Gayer, Creighton & Hanes (formerly Winet, Patrick, Weaver).


The attorney in the Munshower case is Jennifer Creighton, who attended Cal Western.

Case Number: 37-2013-00054530-CU-OE-CTL
Case Location: San Diego
Case Type: Civil
Date Filed: 06/21/2013

Now do you believe me that Ernie Dronenburg has no respect for the law?

As County Clerk, just as he did previously at the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), Ernie Dronenburg disrespects the law. As the second article below shows, he is also a fan of channeling non-profit money to his high-pay pals at related for-profit entities.

Now a San Diego group says he's using the his public office to promote his own personal agenda.

See 10 NEWS VIDEO with Ernie Dronenburg speaking.
Group blasts San Diego County clerk Ernie Dronenburg for questioning same-sex marriage
10newsvideos
Jul 23, 2013
Three weeks after the nation's highest court made a ruling on Proposition 8, which overturned the ban on same sex marriages, tying the knot in San Diego may be tangled up in tension again.


Et tu, Ernie Dronenburg?
San Diego County Clerk seeks to halt gay marriages
By Kelly Davis
CityBeat
Jul 19, 2013

CityBeat's occasionally endorsed Republicans for elected office, usually after getting assurance from the candidate that he won't, well, act like a Republican. In 2010, we gave Ernie Dronenburg our thumb's up over Democrat David Butler for San Diego County assessor / recorder / clerk, largely because Dronenburg promised us that he wouldn't meddle if Prop. 8 were overturned:

Dronenburg’s a Republican and conservative activist, and that makes us worry, sure, but he’s promised us that if Prop. 8 is ultimately negated, his office will treat same-sex couples with respect and dignity.

But today came news that Dronenburg filed a petition with the California Supreme Court, asking that his office be allowed, at least temporarily, to stop performing same-sex marriages. Dronenburg explained to the conservative website San Diego Rostra that he was merely seeking clarification on whether Prop. 8 needs to go back to the Ninth Circuit Court for a ruling.

It's tough to buy the argument that Dronenburg's simply doing his due diligence. Why? Because it wasn't the county's lawyers who who filed the petition on Dronenburg's behalf, but attorney Charles LiMandri. If that name's not familiar, here's a LiMandri primer: Charles LiMandri, a Catholic lawyer best known for his pro-life, anti-gay legal crusades. LiMandri considers himself an expert on "countering the gay agenda," having served as an attorney for the National Organization of Marriage in the Prop. 8 battles and for the San Diego firefighters who sued the city after being required to march in a Pride parade. More recently, LiMandri launched an attack on University of San Diego for hosting a drag show; he's currently demanding that the Catholic university forbid its students from doing internships at organizations that support same-sex marriage.

In 2012, in backing gay Republican Carl DeMaio for mayor, LiMandri said he would "pray for him" (not to get elected, but to change his sinful ways) and that his endorsement wasn't to be considered an endorsement of DeMaio's "lifestyle."

California Attorney General Kamala Harris quickly issued a statement on Dronenburg's petition: "The filing offers no new arguments that could deny same-sex couples their constitutionally protected civil rights. The federal injunction is still in effect, and it requires all 58 counties to perform same-sex marriages. No exceptions."

Tim McClain, spokeperson for county Supervisor Ron Roberts, said Roberts knew nothing about this in advance. McClain offered this statement from Roberts:

"This petition was filed without my consent, consultation or support. I am disappointed and had thought we had moved past such divisiveness after the U.S. Supreme Court's declarative ruling."



County tax assessor Ernie Dronenburg forced the nonprofit NTC Foundation to pay taxes owed by its “for-profit” subsidiary.
NTC Foundation's High-Paying Jobs
By Matt Potter
San Diego Reader
April 6, 2011

Officers have been raking in fat salaries at the nonprofit NTC Foundation, which San Diego city taxpayers bailed out last week to the tune of $1.1 million after county tax assessor Ernie Dronenburg forced the group to pay property taxes owed by its “for-profit” subsidiary. According to the foundation’s latest report to the Internal Revenue Service, filed November 16 of last year and covering 2009, chief financial officer Larry Eyler was paid $148,269; executive director Alan Ziter got $123,558; and operations director Lew Witherspoon received $103,788. Construction manager Neal Singer, listed as an independent contractor, was paid $147,100. Pam Hamilton-Lester, onetime executive director of the City’s Centre City Development Corporation and now the NTC Foundation’s president and chief executive, got $75,886 for a 30-hour week, according to the document.

South Bay Diners' Club: Is SDCOE any less corrupt than indicted board members?

I suggest that the Reader be more vigilant about nasty personal comments. And I agree with the commenters who say, "Welcome back, Susan Luzzaro!"

See comments below with my notes attached.

Documents hint at Sweetwater board’s diners’ club
High school student investigated 10 years ago
By Susan Luzzaro
San Diego Reader
Jan. 11, 2013

The latest round of indictments handed down by San Diego’s criminal grand jury is so extensive, people wonder if corruption is just another name for South Bay. Fifteen defendants from three separate South Bay school districts, a construction company CEO, and a bond financier face 256 charges.

In the case of the Sweetwater Union High School District board, four current trustees — James Cartmill, Bertha Lopez, Pearl Quiñones, Arlie Ricasa, and former trustee Gregorio Sandoval — will be arraigned on charges on January 30. The district’s former superintendent Jesus Gandara will also be arraigned on that day.

By now many people have read about the lavish meals South Bay trustees and school administrators enjoyed at the contractor’s expense. Given what we know about Sweetwater in particular, maybe it’s time to ask if dining out is endemic to the district culture.

Document--Ed Brand’s calendar, January 29, 2001–February 2, 2002
Document--Ed Brand’s district credit-card receipts, July 2000–October 2003

Well before he was indicted, the U-T was reporting on former superintendent Gandara’s dining habits. According to a May 2011 article, Gandara, before having his district credit card yanked, “had charged more than 300 meals to taxpayers over three years, even though his contract paid him $800 a month for expenses.”

The same article tells us: “Some $12,560 was charged to Gandara's district credit card for 366 meals from November 2007 to March 16, when he stopped using it.

“The most common meal partners for Gandara were members of the school board, who took part in 238 of the meals.

“Trustee Arlie Ricasa dined with the superintendent 92 times, followed by trustee Pearl Quiñones at 49 times. Former trustee Greg Sandoval met with Gandara 41 times, according to the records, while trustee Jim Cartmill met with him 38 times and Bertha Lopez met with him 11 times.

“Newly appointed board member John McCann appears seven times, including once as a Chula Vista councilman before his job on the school board.”

Gandara justified his use of the credit card by saying that without it “community members would have to come to the district office for coffee or water instead of being treated to restaurants.”

Many people in the South Bay wonder why taxpayers pay for administrative offices that are not the setting for business meetings — whether with trustees or contractors.

But Gandara did not invent the fine art of dining out.

In 2002, a Sweetwater student began investigating the district. Gordon Siu was a reporter for his Bonita Vista High School paper. In a January 9 interview, Siu, a 2010 Yale graduate, said he began to get a sense that the district administration “was doing things the wrong way.” It appeared to Siu that “the trend was that these officials were more concerned with making themselves look good than they were with education.”

Before Siu graduated from Bonita Vista in ’06, he put in two public record requests: one for then-superintendent Ed Brand’s calendar and the other for Brand’s credit card receipts spanning 2000–2003. (Brand was superintendent of Sweetwater from 1995–2005. He returned to Sweetwater on the heels of Gandara’s buyout in June 2011.)

When he received the record, Siu was taken aback when he saw that Brand ate out almost every day and sometimes twice a day. Siu wondered: “When did he have time for students and teachers?”

Looking at the South Bay scandal today, Siu commented, “I tried to tell everyone years ago what was going on.”

[Maura Larkins comment: I hear you, Gordon. I tried, too.]


COMMENTS

...oskidoll Jan. 11, 2013 @ 3 p.m.

Perhaps NOW the County Board/Office of Education might pay attention? 15 indictments, including at least 3 for extortion, should certainly bring the South County education establishment messes to the attention of the body that is supposed to oversee operations, especially fiscal matters, of the school districts in their jurisdiction. The next meeting of the [SD]COE will feature the seating of the new representative from District 2, Lyn Nealon. It will be Wednesday, January 23 at 6 p.m. Perhaps she will be more responsive to matters in South County than the prior representative.

By the way, I see an interesting entry in Brand's old calendar: a meeting with Sandoval and Rudy Castruita, the former CEO of the CBOE [also known as SDCOE]. Castruita now pulls down a handsome STRS pension in his retirement, perhaps the highest in the entire county. Seems that Dr. Granger Ward [correction: Randolph Ward], his successor, should be doing something for his pay.

[Maura Larkins note: SDCOE has some issues of its own. Rodger Hartnett's lawsuit included information about the SDCOE Diners Club at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. Many people are alarmed by the actions of Dan Puplava and Diane Crosier. Randy Ward and the SDCOE board allow Crosier to conceal the gifts she receives.]


timtim Jan. 11, 2013 @ 5:49 p.m.

Wow Bertha Lopez indited on 19 counts and Susan writes about Ed Brands lunch schedule from 10 years ago? I smell a Pulitzer for this Hack


angrybirds Jan. 14, 2013 @ 10:25 a.m.

...Hey wow, I think this timtim sounds like McCann or Grossman two Republicans pouting because they didn't get their way in the elections.

[Maura Larkins note: Many Democrats disapprove of corruption on the part of Democrats. I have said for years that Bertha Lopez is corrupt, but I believe that the small-time skimming of these defendants is not the worst kind of corruption in our schools. I would have voted for Lopez if I lived in her district because I think she was the lesser evil.

As for serious corruption, I believe that SDCOE corrupted Lopez (and almost all board members in the county) more than any contractor did.

Guess who helped direct Bertha Lopez' actions when she first became a board member of CVESD?

None other than former and current SUHSD Superintendent ED BRAND!!!

He was on SDCOE's Legal Services Council and was also a regional chair of ACSA, so he is doubly responsible for travesties like the Mary Ann Weegar case in Sweetwater and is also partially responsible for my case at CVESD. I was fired, in part, for filing grievances and a lawsuit. The other part was that I refused to come to work until an investigation was done. Here's how my case started. The "investigation" was never completed.

Why not, Bertha Lopez?

For some reason, the teachers union doesn't like to talk about my case, and, perhaps as a result of that, the Reader won't write about it. The teachers union clearly didn't want an investigation in my case because it would have exposed crimes by Robin Donlan, a friend of CVE President Gina Boyd.

SDCOE's JPA sent instructions to school boards through representatives. One of the instructions is "Deny all claims." Patrick Judd was SDCOE's representative at CVESD when Bertha arrived. Judd, Larry Cunningham and Pamela Smith had control of the board, and Bertha went along with them. Also, CVESD Superintendent Lowell Billings was on the Superintendents' committee that directed how lawsuits would be handled.

White Chalk Crime is the term coined by Karen Horwitz for what is going on in many schools and county boards of education. It seems to be thriving here in Enron by the Sea.]


COMMENTERS ATTACK YOUNG PERSON

[Maura Larkins note: Why does the Reader publish comments attacking a person's height and weight and calling names??? Is anyone at the Reader actually reading the comments?

I am not happy to see teachers and other adults ridiculing a student (timtim) and commenting on his chances of academic success. Why not say something to reach out to him and offer a bit of information that he can absorb with his current mind set? That's what a good teacher would do.

I am appalled that an adult would make fun of a person's size and a teacher would resort to name-calling of students. Appalled, but not at all surprised. It's what I heard in the teachers lounge for decades. Often, these same teachers punish children for bullying behavior. But students report that this bullying by teachers takes place inside classrooms, too. What are kids supposed to take away from such mixed messages?]

Here is a separate Reader article in which supporters of teacher/board member Bertha Lopez verbally attack a young person who wants to be a teacher.

Some of the comments are included here:

timtim Jan. 11, 2013 @ 5:52 p.m.

It was pretty simple....sorry it sailed over your head,and no I am not a learning center packet checker wanna be teacher like the rest of you


Visduh Jan. 11, 2013 @ 9:05 p.m.

Eastlaker, I was waiting for someone to take timtim to task for his poor spelling, poor grammar, lack of punctuation, and generally not knowing the conventions of typing, such as a space after the comma and . . . In a couple previous go-rounds our pal anniej would do that, but you've done it well. If I can get past all the language challenges, timtim seems to be saying...

And, timtim, I'm not a wanna-be teacher (note punctuation), I am a teacher with a heck of a lot better language skills than you will ever have, even it you live a century.


eastlaker Jan. 11, 2013 @ 10:36 p.m. [In the comments in the "Diners Club" article at the top of this post, eastlaker also makes fun of Ed Brand's former girth.]

I guess we will have to add unfamiliarity with the correct use of tense. As in present, past, future, etc.

Pretty sure timtim wouldn't be able to pass the high school exit exam if this is all s/he is capable of.


Visduh Jan. 13, 2013 @ 9:01 p.m.

If timtim doesn't want to take hits for grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax and a host of other language skills, then he should clean up his act and make his message clear. It isn't just his sloppy typing that misses the mark, it is that his comments seem all but incomprehensible.


jibaro Jan. 14, 2013 @ 4:10 a.m.

Visduh, I think you were my 10th grade English teacher ! :} :} :}

[Visduh has indeed mentioned being a teacher. Jibaro seems to be a subtle, humorous person.]


anniej Jan. 11, 2013 @ 10:24 p.m.

Tim Tim: according to one of your high school teachers you were a puts as a teenager, and have grown up to be an older, even though not bigger putts. Could it be that the net has not been pulled all of the way in? Might there be more fish? Hmmmmmmmmm

[Maura Larkins note: I think it's spelled "putz". I'm not a stickler for precise spelling, but I thought you'd like to know. It's Yiddish.]


jibaro Jan. 12, 2013 @ 4:39 a.m.

Sorry to see Tim Tim taking hits for grammar, spell, etc. Open season for his positions. That having been said, I will note that Dr. Brand does what the majority of the Board allows him to do. Three votes, they all understand three votes on a five member board.


COMMENTERS GLAD THAT SUSAN LUZZARO IS WRITING AGAIN



anniej Jan. 11, 2013 @ 4:20 p.m.

Ms. LUZZARRO: When the South Bay thinks of reporting the news The Reader and you are what we think of. Not sure where you went, hopefully you were having fun, but hip hip hooray YOU ARE BACK!!!!!!!


Visduh Jan. 11, 2013 @ 4:01 p.m.

Susan, we have missed you. When one round of new indictments was announced, I expected a report and there was none. Then the following day five more were indicted, and I was sure you would report. Hope you are back and on the job doing what you do so well, keeping us up to date on this ongoing scandal.


VigilantinCV Jan. 12, 2013 @ 11:28 a.m.

OMG! So glad you are back, Susan Luzzaro. Your voice in the South Bay is invaluable to those of us who want to know the hard facts. Thank you, Susan and The READER.


dbdriver Jan. 11, 2013 @ 8 p.m.

By the way, thank you Susan, for once again bringing such information to light.


erupting Jan. 11, 2013 @ 2:51 p.m.

Out of the mouth of babes as the saying goes. Here is a past student that was aware of the culture of Sweetwater way before any of us. Wow this article is a real eye opener. Brand was feeding at the trough long before Gandara came and longer. Someone told me that he also bought his rental car that we supplied him for the time he was with us at a generous discount. Does anyone know about this? Glad to hear from you Susan Luzzaro.


jibaro Jan. 11, 2013 @ 4:15 p.m.

Susan, great to have you back!


anniej Jan. 11, 2013 @ 4:30 p.m.

Jlbaro: Off topic, but in Ms. Luzzaro's absence I was trolling thru some of her old articles and found I had missed a reply you made to me regarding one of the board members. PLEASE KNOW, my comments were not aimed at you. I was speaking of someone else.


susan Jan. 12, 2013 @ 12:57 p.m.

Gordon Siu, we must admit, was a remarkable student and journalist and continues to contribute to the community. He has his own website which contains other pieces of journalism related to the school district which may interest those who follow the subject. Thanks for your work, Gordon.