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...

If student hackers are "depraved," then Poway Unified School District is deeply depraved

This post was first published in May 2008.

I am republishing it in the light of the 2015 convictions of black teachers in Altanta for cheating on standardized student tests.

Apparently Atlanta is a lot like San Diego. 

When illegal activity happens in a school, local officials handle the issue in two very different ways. When the wrongdoer is an adult with political connections, taxpayer money is poured into that person's defense, and the schools go into cover-up mode. On the other hand, if the wrongdoer has no political connections, the school goes after him or her with a vengeance. The justice system stands ready to support schools and other public entities. You're fighting an uphill battle when you want justice from a pubic entity. See series of posts about shenanigans in Poway.  

There was an amazing case at Guajome Park Academy where teachers improperly changed grades, but instead of censuring the teacherd, the school sued a whistle-blower kid who hacked the school computer to prove the wrongdoing.
 
See also my comparison of the Atlanta cheating scandal and the bizarre color-coordinated indictments of school officials in San Diego.
ORIGINAL MAY 2008 POST:

I've learned a lot about dishonesty among San Diego County school officials over the past seven years.

I've been amazed and astounded by it.

However, I never thought of using the word "depraved" to describe Poway Unified School District. I'm thinking about it now. To start with, I will say this: if students who cheated on tests and changed grades are "depraved," then PUSD is definitely deeply depraved.

The San Diego Union Tribune reports that Assistant Principal Keith Koelzer says that the current cheating scandal at Rancho Bernardo High School is "unique in its depth of complexity and depravity."

PUSD has taken $100,000s of taxpayer dollars from education and used it to protect the arbitrary power of individuals in power. For example, at the same time that they are saying that Tyler Chase Harper can't wear an anti-gay T-shirt, they are appealing a court decision that they should pay $300,000 to two gay students whose harassment was ignored and permitted by PUSD.

Which is it, PUSD? Do you think gay students should be protected or not?

Poway has paid far more than $300,000 to fight this case: Donovan and Ramelli v. Poway Unified School District.

It would have been better to give the money to the students, or, better yet, to have protected the students and used the money for education.

But is PUSD depraved?

Encarta dictionary says depraved means "showing great moral corruption or wickedness."

Well, then, yes;  PUSD is depraved. But the students? I think they're too young to earn that title. We can't excuse PUSD on the basis of youthful hijinks.



RBHS assistant principal on hacking case: 'Unique in its depth of ... depravity'
By J. Harry Jones
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 1, 2008

RANCHO BERNARDO – An assistant principal revealed details of a cheating scandal uncovered at Rancho Bernardo High School, and his reaction to the decline of morality among some students, in an emotional memo to teachers.

“Our (worst) technological nightmare has just occurred,” Assistant Principal Keith Koelzer wrote. “At this point, we have identified 8 students (with varying degrees of involvement) who hacked into our school network, downloaded several teacher's files on the flashdrives, distributed tests to students days before they were administered and altered grades on student transcripts. The eight students are all Advanced Placement students, they are all smart, but they have no wisdom. “This case is unique in its depth of complexity and depravity.”
Koelzer sent the memo Saturday to teachers and other staff members by e-mail, the day after the scandal was uncovered. The San Diego Union-Tribune requested the memo, and the Poway Unified School District released it Thursday, with small parts of it redacted.
Until now, school officials have released few details about the ongoing investigation.
“On Friday, one student went into incredible detail of his movements in this deceit over the past two months,” Koelzer said in the memo. “After listening, I turned to his mother and asked, 'What do you think of this kind of morality?' The mother replied, 'I am not a mother anymore.' I asked the same question to the boy's father and he responded, 'This is not the morality of my ancestors.'”
Koelzer wrote that the pressure to get into a good college “has overly consumed one of our students. He described to his father and me how his transcripts were altered and personally delivered them to a college. As the student talked, I watched his father's face and I could see his 18-year dream of his child's UC education disappear.”
The names, ages and grade levels of the students have not been released.
“We must honor the due process of these students,” Koelzer said. “The stakes cannot be any higher for these students. They are staring at expulsion, questioning by police, questioning by our district technicians, (a) potential lawsuit by the district” and a rescinding of college offers.
On Monday, district Superintendent Donald Phillips said six students have been suspended while the investigation continues. Principal Paul Robinson said the police are aware of what has happened but are awaiting the results of the school investigation before proceeding..

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?

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

UPDATE: Add Gregg Robinson to the list of SDCOE trustees who are taking over the Sweetwater board. Even though he wasn't charged or convicted of a crime, Sweetwater trustee John McCannn is also pushed out. SDCOE administrators also took the place of Sweetwater administrators at the most recent board meeting.


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

All of the above except Robinson will take over the Sweetwater
Union High School District board. (See all posts on South Bay Indictments.)
These individuals have maintained secrecy about gifts to Diane Crosier,
the director of Risk Management. Also, they have kept Crosier's pal Dan Puplava
in his position despite revelations of enormous amounts of money
he received from financial institutions connected to SDCOE.

Troubled Sweetwater school district served with temporary trustees
KUSI News
May 19, 2014

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - Four members of the San Diego County Board of Education will serve as temporary trustees for the troubled Sweetwater Union High School District, the county Office of Education announced Monday.

The appointees will fill the seats of Sweetwater board members who were suspended or ousted after pleading guilty to various corruption charges.

The selections were made today by county school board President Susan Hartley, three days after Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes granted a request by the district to allow Hartley to fill the leadership posts.

"This decision allows the San Diego County Board of Education and the San Diego County Office of Education to provide whatever services to the district that may be necessary to ensure the smooth operation of its programs," Hartley said. "We have always been focused on supporting the district in educating students."

The appointees are Mark Anderson, who represents inland North County and rural East County; Sharon Jones, who represents most of the southeastern portion of the county; Lyn Neylon, who represents the southwestern part of the county; and Hartley herself, who represents the North County coast.

Last month, board President Jim Cartmill and Trustee Bertha Lopez pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor accepting gifts charge, and then-Trustee Pearl Quinones was sentenced to three months of house arrest after her admission to a felony conspiracy count and a misdemeanor of accepting gifts above the state limit.

Former trustees Arlie Ricasa and Greg Sandoval, ex-Superintendent Jesus Gandara and a construction company executive, Henry Amigable, previously pleaded guilty in the case.

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.

Remembering the San Diego Union-Tribune expose of Dan Puplava

Current SDCOE board members Mark Anderson, Susan Hartley, Lyn Neylong, Gregg Robinson and Sharon Jones still don't require that Diane Crosier, executive director of SDCOE's Risk Management Department, report the gifts she receives.

Remember this story? Here's how the San Diego County Office of Education's Dan Puplava scandal started four-and-a-half years ago. SDCOE Superintendent Randolph Ward and the SDCOE board allowed Diane Crosier and Dan Puplava to silence whistle-blowers and anyone else in their way.

“He's getting paid a salary by the taxpayers to manage the registered representatives, not to be a registered representative..."

Benefits manager’s work questioned
County employee also acted as a broker
By Jeff McDonald
San Diego Union-Tribune
March 17, 2009

A San Diego County Office of Education employee tasked with managing a retirement program for thousands of teachers and administrators supplemented his salary for years with commissions on outside investments he sold to those same clients.

Daniel Puplava makes $100,000 to $108,000 a year as the deferred compensation manager for a consortium that serves public educators in three counties. At the same time, Puplava has been allowed to pursue those clients for his private broker business.

In 2006, Puplava collected at least $355,000 in commissions as a broker for AIG Financial Advisors Inc., according to documents obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune. He was named to the 2008 Achiever's Council, an honor reserved for agents of AIG Financial Advisors whose commissions and fees exceed $250,000 a year.

His attorney said Puplava shared that money with other brokers.

[Maura Larkins comment in 2013: Diane Crosier and Dan Puplava never produced any evidence that Puplava "shared that money with other brokers." Their lawsuits seem to have been intended to intimidate their critics into settlement rather than to have their day in court to prove their innocence.]

Officials at the county schools office said they knew about Puplava's broker business and saw no conflict of interest because he has done the work on his own time.

“It's not unheard of for public employees to have a business on the side,” spokesman James Esterbrooks said.

The arrangement does not appear to violate federal securities laws, but it tests the limits of the state education code and has become one of the main sticking points in litigation involving the office.

Puplava's work as a broker also appears to have been done at county offices. Client statements obtained by the Union-Tribune list Puplava's phone number at the county schools office as his primary contact.

“It certainly strikes me as an apparent conflict of interest,” said Ronald F. Duska, director of the Mitchell Center for Ethical Leadership at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa. “It just sets up incredible temptations for the guy who's supposed to be acting as a manager.”

Puplava, who is 47 and lives in Escondido, declined to be interviewed. His attorney, Randall Winet, responded to questions with a March 6 letter to the newspaper stating that Puplava has divested himself of his personal clients and received only a portion of the commissions cited in documents.

“The funds from financial services companies were paid directly to him, which he then was required to distribute to a number of brokers working for him,” the letter says.

Winet also said Puplava had “a significant, thriving practice prior to ever joining the County Office of Education.”

Puplava is a registered broker for SagePoint Financial Inc. in Phoenix, which until recently was called AIG Financial Advisors.

His full-time job is to manage the deferred compensation retirement program for the Fringe Benefits Consortium, which provides access to health insurance, annuities and other services for school employees across San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties.

The consortium was created in 1982 to help school employees negotiate better deals on health insurance by pooling resources.

Twelve districts representing 2,500 or so teachers initially joined the self-insurance partnership, but the client roster grew to 72,000 as the consortium attracted more districts and expanded its services.

When the Office of Education hired Puplava in 1997, he was permitted to keep his “book of business,” or private clients, county schools officials said.

Puplava also was allowed to grow his client base by soliciting teachers he met through his county job.

Four years after his hiring, the county schools office was among the first agencies in the country to organize an umbrella retirement program for teachers, who as public employees receive government pensions but often supplement those benefits by setting up individual investment accounts.

The idea was to give teachers the opportunity to buy investment products without paying the high fees and commissions normally associated with individual transactions.

Puplava was put in charge of the deferred compensation program. He contracted with outside financial advisers to promote the services, and together they hosted hundreds of informational seminars outlining the various products and services.

About 6,000 teachers and administrators have bought supplemental investment products offered through the deferred compensation program.

Consortium director Diane Crosier said that after a new superintendent was hired in 2006, a decision was made to allow Puplava to keep existing clients but restrict him from accepting new teachers and educators as customers. But by then, even incoming Superintendent Randolph Ward had bought an annuity from Puplava.

[Maura Larkins comment: Did your employee give you a good deal, Randy?]

Running an outside business is legal for full-time county Office of Education employees. But according to the California Department of Justice, a deferred compensation program manager is supposed to be a neutral party – not someone who profits from marketing financial products.

“The statute prohibits school employees from acting as sales agents for 403(b) vendors in return for commissions,” according to an August opinion from the Attorney General's Office analyzing the state's education code.

Section 403(b) of the Internal Revenue Service doe allows public and nonprofit employees to pay into tax-deferred supplemental accounts to boost their retirement nest eggs, much like 401(k) programs in the private sector. Former employees and independent advisers say the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Puplava's dealings. Crosier said the SEC has looked into Puplava, but that was more than a year ago and nothing has happened.

The San Diego County District Attorney's Office requested copies of related civil case files but closed its investigation in July after finding no evidence of criminal conduct.

The SEC and the District Attorney’s Office declined to discuss the situation, as did Ward.

In August, the consortium terminated the contracts of six brokers who had been enrolling and serving clients for years. Three weeks later, the schools office sued those brokers, claiming they had stolen clients and business from the consortium.

The brokers fought back, filing a 26-page cross-complaint last month that lodged numerous allegations against Puplava, Crosier and county schools office officials.

Among other things, the cross-complaint says Puplava opened a partnership with three of the fired advisers – Barry Allred, Christopher Dougherty and Michael Zeiger – that operated as FBC Insurance Services.

The partners shared tens of thousands of dollars in fees and commissions paid by FBC clients, the cross-complaint alleges.

Court papers also say Puplava negotiated a deal with Aviva Life and Annuity Co. that paid him 30 percent of all commissions the partnership received from Aviva. In 2006, Puplava personally collected more than $26,000 in Aviva commissions from February to October, the cross-suit says.

Citing the ongoing litigation, Crosier declined to address specific allegations, including why Puplava was permitted to sell his clients financial products not available under the consortium when the fired brokers were sued for the same activity.

“There are huge inaccuracies in that lawsuit,” Crosier said. Kris Kertzman, who worked as a consortium broker from 2002 to 2007 but is not part of the pending litigation, said Puplava's clients think he “has their best interests in mind because he works for the county.”

“He's getting paid a salary by the taxpayers to manage the registered representatives, not to be a registered representative,” Kertzman said.

Tom Anthony, a favorite of San Diego County Office of Education, and a long-ago high school election

Superintendent Tom Anthony

Mia Wenjen

When a lowly student confronts a powerful school official 30 years after a wrong was committed, it's like a high school reunion--only better.

Here's the background on the powerful people in this story:

San Diego County Office of Education superintendents Rudy Castruita and Randolph Ward have kept the same interconnected group of people in positions of power at SDCOE. Among the most powerful positions are those of Diane Crosier and Lora Duzyk in the department that controls the SDCOE Joint Powers Authority ("JPA"). A small group of school superintendents is selected to run the JPA's legal advisory board.

For many years, Tom Anthony was one of those superintendents who worked intimately with JPA lawyers. See more on Tom HERE.

Here are memories of Tom Anthony by a girl who was a student at the high school where he worked as vice-principal thirty years ago:

A True Tale of Two Cheaters: 30 Years Later
Mia Wenjen
Pragmatic Mom Blog
August 19, 2013

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

When I went to college, my boyfriend informed me that I was provincial. From a province. He was from Queens, New York, and commuted an hour each way to a New York city magnet school. I protested that I was from a beach town. A suburban beach town! But he was right. I was provincial and my local politics prove it. Corruption is easy to pull off in a province.

The year is 1983. The month is June. Seniors are about to graduate but there is one thing left for me to do: I have to run the All Student Body Elections.

This cast of characters at Los Alamitos High School 30 years ago:

Tom Anthony: Vice Principal and in charge of Student Council. He’s going to University of Southern California (USC) at night to get his PhD in Education. He’s a young, affable guy and everyone really likes him, myself included, at least until THE CHEATING INCIDENT!

Mia Wenjen: I’m the Student Representative to the School Board. Admittedly, it’s a lame Student Council position, strictly for resume building. I may have even been appointed. I really can’t remember. My job is to attend School Board meetings which is harder than it sounds because it’s a snoozefest, and run the All Student Body elections for the next year’s student council.

Mark Abrams: A few years my senior, Mark at the tender age of 18 or so was the youngest person ever elected to the School Committee. He is a rising star in the politico world and in a different class than me. We, for example, never exchange words, even when we are sitting next to each other.


Phillip Swagel

Phillip Swagel: I describe him as the smartest kid in my high class but my husband would correct me to say that he’s one of the smartest people in the United States. With a PhD in Economics from Harvard, he was the Senate Confirmed Economist under Paulson who engineered the Investment Banking bailouts: AIG, Bear Stears, Lehman Brothers and the rest. Each blow up ruined his weekend. In high school, he was the only kid with a computer and, naturally, a wiz at programming.

John Orr: He was class of 1983 with me and on Student Council. Was he the treasurer? I can’t remember. His father is the Dean of USC’s School of Education where, you might have noticed, Vice Principal Tom Anthony is enrolled.

Shelley Sandusky: She’s the class of 1984 — one year younger — and John Orr’s girlfriend. They are both in band and drama club. She is running for ASB President and is a nice and smart person but not a “popular.”

Rich Morgan : He is the football quarterback who is also nice and smart. He’s running for ASB President as well. He’s popular as football star players tend to be who are also nice, smart and good looking.

I’m pretty burnt out of high school. I’m off to college back east and ready to blow this popsicle stand. It seems so confining. So many rules. So little freedom. But I need to run the elections as my final duty for my Student Council position. I wrangle Phill Swagel into writing a program for me that will count the scantron ballots which total around 1700.

The election process is fairly straight forward. Call for nominees. A round of speeches and then the voting and count the ballots. A scanner with Phill’s program makes quick work of it. Phill and I are done in less than an hour. We tally the winners, rubber band the ballots, and bring it to Mr. Tom Anthony who will announce the winners over the loudspeaker the next morning.

Only the next day, I can’t believe my ears. The ASB President winner is Rich (I can’t remember his last name) who won by a landslide. Only Mr. Anthony is announcing that it’s Shelley Sandusky.

Furious, I race to his office to confront him. I’m told by his secretary that I am not allowed to scream at him. I don’t care. I accuse him of cheating. That he’s just a loser shop teacher trying to social climb his way to Principal. That he can’t stop me from going to college. He claims that he did a recount that night and my tally was wrong.

“Liar!” I said. “There’s no way you did a hand tally. That would take hours. I am the only one with the computer program. There’s no way you spent hours counting ballots.”

I demand a recount. I get the ballots, find Phill and we’re off to the library for a recount using his program to rescan the ballots. Now it gets weird.

We are missing several hundred ballots (350?) but the winners of all the other offices — VP, Secretary, Treasurer, and rest of the offices — remain the same. Did Mr. Anthony throw out 350 ballots? If so, why didn’t the winners of the other offices change? Some of those positions were in close contention. Much closer than ASB President. Did he fill out replacement ballots with Shelley’s name keeping the other offices the same but ran out of time or motivation to complete the full number? He probably did not realize I had a total ballot count by way of the program. We could not figure out definitively what had happened. And where did those missing ballots go? I searched the waste basket but it wasn’t in his office. Maybe he took them home?

I track down Rich, the real winner. I tell him that he really won. By a landslide. By 4: 1 margins. He shrugs. I tell him to get his parents involved. He won’t. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is too humiliating to fight for the office. Maybe it isn’t worth the fuss to him. Would it make a difference for college? I don’t know. All the smart kids at my high school want to go to Stanford and only a small handful – 4 at the most — get accepted from our high school.

I’m tired. Tired of high school. It’s not my battle. I did my part and tried to run an honest election but it’s clear to me that this is truly what democracy is: corrupt. Those with power manipulate the results. India is like this and so many other countries that have “democracies.” I’m a jaded teenage. I’ve been reading too much Ayn Rand and Catcher in the Rye. I am sickened but there’s nothing I can do.

Why did Mr. Anthony do this? Is it for dinner invitations at the Orr house? Is his PhD dissertation defense in jeopardy? (He’s a nice guy, but truly not that smart.) Does he think he is doing right by letting Drama Nerd win over Popular Athlete? This is 1983, after all. Decades before High School Musical!

About five years ago, curiosity got the best of me and I called my old high school under an assumed name to find out what happened to Tom Anthony. Posing as “Helen Lee”, I chatted up his secretary. [An assumed name was necessary because I am persona non grata after my little incident.] She gushed about him saying that he was so successful, moving up from Principal to Superintendent in the San Juan Capistrano School District, about 30 miles south.

One of south Orange County’s leading school administrators may leave his post to head a San Diego County school district, officials said Monday.

Thomas R. Anthony, Capistrano Unified’s associate superintendent of secondary schools, is one of two candidates being considered for the superintendent position at Grossmont Union High School District, a suburban school system in eastern San Diego County. LA Times

If selected, Anthony will leave 37,000-student Capistrano Unified for a district of 22,000 high school students, one of the largest secondary school districts in the state.

Anthony, 51, has spent the past 11 years at Capistrano Unified as a district administrator and principal at Capistrano Valley High School.

“I would be sad, really sad” to leave Orange County if given the San Diego job, Anthony said. “I’ve developed a lot of great friendships with administrators, teachers and students here.”

I have a brief fantasy of faxing my story over to the local newspaper. Superintendents are sometimes elected positions. But I am busy raising three kids and though usually good for holding a grudge, it seemed a extreme, even for me.

Now I realized that it’s been 30 years so it’s time for the true story to be heard. Tom Anthony must be retired by now, and it seems that the lesson here is that cheating does pay off. Or does it?

I did a recent google search and found this doozy.

Superintendent Tom Anthony has been sent packing from Fallbrook, December 13, 2007

Along with Ed Brand, Tom Anthony exerted a lot of control over San Diego County Office of Education. Or would it be more correct to say that through Ed Brand and Tom Anthony, Diane Crosier of the SDCOE-JPA exerted a lot of control over school districts? Either way, the personal advancement of individuals in high places has taken precedence over the well being of students in San Diego County.

Fallbrook has gotten rid of Tom Anthony. But has the rest of the county gotten rid of him?

and this …

FALLBROOK — Tom Anthony, the embattled leader of the Fallbrook Union High School District, will resign as superintendent Jan. 11, 2007 under a $319,931 buyout agreement that took effect Tuesday, officials said.

The arrangement requires the district to pay Anthony 18 months of salary — or $281,000 — plus health and other benefits through June 2010. Those figures are spelled out in Anthony’s contract, which would have ended then.

While no one contacted for this story would discuss the reasons behind Anthony’s departure, district teachers have complained for years about what they call his intimidating leadership style.

When polled in March, 122 of the district’s 150 teachers answered ”Strongly disagree” to the statement “I have confidence in the leadership of the superintendent.”

Anthony, who is 62, took over as superintendent in 1997.

The friction extends as far back as 2001, when then-technology director Doug Newton was fired after accessing the telephone voicemail of several teachers who were protesting salary issues.

Newton later charged that Anthony ordered him to gain access to the district-owned voicemail system…

Fallbrook High School Teacher’s Association President Tim Oder accused Anthony of running the campaigns of Fran White and Jim Hutcherson, who are both seeking re-election for the board in November.

“We have a tremendous problem in the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District —- it is people who have abused their power and abused taxpayers’ money,” said Oder.

Oh, Tom Anthony. You are the same person when I was in high school! The more things change, the more they stay the same. You are still up to your old tricks! It seems election fraud is your speciality!

Thomas Anthony, retired in 2009 as superintendent of the Fallbrook Union High School District, San Diego, receives $173,812 or 89 percent of his salary.

[Rudy Castruita, retired in 2006 as superintendent to the San Diego County Office of Education, receives $281,034 or 107 percent of his salary. Rudy was the principal of my high school during this same period.]

Castruita receives the region’s top educator pension of $281,034 a year, or 107 percent of his final salary. That pay in retirement exceeds U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s 2009 base salary of $196,700. Castruita, a 1992 state superintendent of the year, did not return several calls. --San Diego Education Report

After a little more Googling, I found out what happened to Tom Anthony…

The Klamath-Trinity Joint Unified School District will have a new superintendent starting in June, 2011.

The school board voted last week to hire Michael Reid to replace Interim Superintendent Thomas Anthony at the end of the school year, according to the district. Anthony is a retired administrator from San Diego and was brought in to act as interim superintendent after former Superintendent Douglas Oliveira left for a coaching position at College of the Redwoods.

So that is cheater 1. What do you think? Despite being thrown out, he seems to have fared pretty well. Cheating agrees with him.

Cheater 2 is that promising politco Mark Alan Abrams. He became a real estate broker in the Los Angeles Beverly Hills area where he conducted a series of mortgage frauds affecting Lehman Brothers that went down like this:

Buy the cheapest house in a nice area. For the sake of illusrtation, we’ll call this $500,000.
Do nothing to the house.
Sell it for an inflated price (We’ll call this $1,000,000) to a buyer you are in cahoots with.
Have the house appraised by a crooked appraiser for $1,000,000.
When the bank runs a computer appraisal, it will check out as the homes in that area are in the $1,000,000 range.
Have the new owner take a second mortgage on the house. Default on the mortages. Take the money, split it among yourselves and run.
Do this over and over again.

For a long time, Mark and his partner in crime lived high on the hog, Bernie Madoff style. When it came to a head, his partner tried to escape to Mexico but was captured and extradited. Mark is now serving a 6 1/2 year sentence in jail.

Mark Alan Abrams, 49, of downtown Los Angeles, was sentenced by United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson. In addition to the prison term, Judge Pregerson ordered Abrams to pay more than $41 million in restitution to two federally insured banks.

Abrams and Fitzgerald ran a wide-ranging and sophisticated scheme that obtained inflated mortgage loans on homes in some of California’s most expensive neighborhoods, including Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Malibu, Carmel, Mill Valley, Pebble Beach, and La Jolla. Members of the conspiracy—real estate brokers, appraisers, and mortgage bankers, who all shared in the profits from the fraudulent sales—sent false documentation, including bogus purchase contracts and appraisals, to the victim banks to deceive them into funding mortgage loans that were hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the homes actually cost. Lehman Brothers Bank alone was deceived into funding more than 80 such inflated loans from 2000 into 2003, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses.

February 15, 2005 | From Times Staff Reports

A week after the city Ethics Commission levied a record $270,000 fine against developer Mark Alan Abrams for laundering political contributions, the panel’s executive director accused six former Abrams associates Monday of participating in the scheme.

Mark Abrams isn’t making any friends either by the comments from this post:

I owe this guy a SERIOUS beat-down from when he used my friend’s dad’s name and literally almost ruined him. My friend’s dad had a severe heart attack because Mark Abrams defrauded him and my friends family back in 1989-1990. My friend’s dad trusted Mark and he drove my friend’s dad to almost ruins health wise. Listen up chump, if I ever find you Mark, I will, with my own bare hands rip your throat out and piss in your neck. Comment by Mark Abrams Hater — April 4, 2007 @ 6:31 pm Hey Mark, remember the white BMW you “sold” me? Remember me making payments to you that you never paid the lien holder to the car? Remember disappearing on me and sending my credit to the toilet because of this and the BMW you “sold” me was repossessed? I swear if I find you or if I find out where you are jailed, I will make sure the rest of your life is miserable. If I do find you before you go to jail, I will stuff every bill you left me with up your ass. You will pay for what you did to me and my family. I GUARANTEE that, you crooked ass loser. Comment by Mark Abrams Hater — April 5, 2007 @ 3:45 pm

I would guess that he is getting some serious beat downs in jail but maybe that doesn’t happen in white collar jail?

You remember that my friend Phillip Swagel was in charge of figuring out what to do when the sub-prime mortgage economic meltdown happened. How strange that a kid from our high school had a role in this. Phill ultimately decided not to bail out Lehman Brothers.

The world is small and everyone is connected. And it seems that character flaws that seem small continue on their path of destruction, leaving many, many victims in its wake.

As for Shelly Sandusky, she got into Stanford. Would she have been admitted had she not been ASB President? Who knows? Would Rich have gotten that coveted spot if he had claimed his rightful position thus demonstrating Leadership which all top colleges love to see? I think he ended up at U.C.L.A.

We’ll never know. Like many kids at top schools who wonder how the heck they got in, she should know that she caught a break. But it’s not so much how you got in, as what you do with it. Shelly is currently an attorney at The Habeas Corpus Resource Center (HCRC), located in San Francisco, which represents indigent men and women under sentence of death in California. The HCRC’s mission is to provide timely, high-quality legal representation for indigent petitioners in death penalty habeas corpus proceedings before the Supreme Court of California and the federal courts.

As for my provincial high school, I have to say that things are pretty exciting in the sleepy town of Los Alamitos where my high school is. We may be country bumpkins, but we aren’t boring!


Los Alamitos High School Swim Team, 1981. I’m the far right in the front row.

p.s. My thanks to Stacy Pollard Zuanich and Andy Morrissey for their help on Facebook recalling the names of the cast. Is it Rich Hernandez who was denied his ASB Presidentship? Also thank you to Rhonda Schwandt for the swim team photo. Good times!

p.p.s. Final thank you to Shelley Sandusky for identifying Rich Morgan as the person who really was elected ASB President and for weighing in.

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges has disgraced itself again

The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges sometimes shows more interest in protecting board members, insurance companies and lawyers than in helping students.

In San Diego, the ACCJC got involved in the bizarre scandal at MiraCosta College, in which the majority board members eventually spent about $1.5 million on an out-of-control investigation of $305 of stolen water. Then it spent another $1.5 million on lawyers and a settlement that was invalidated in court.

The ACCJC also silenced minority board members on the board by threatening to take away the college's accreditation if they continued to speak out. Apparently they did this in order to protect the majority board members and San Diego County Office of Education's Diane Crosier and her pal Daniel Shinoff.

See all posts for Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC).

U.S. faults panel that criticized City College of San Francisco
U.S. Department of Education gives the panel a year to correct problems after it comes under fire for moving to revoke accreditation of City College of San Francisco.
By Carla Rivera
LA Times
August 14, 2013

A panel that moved to revoke the accreditation of City College of San Francisco is under fire, accused of violating several federal regulations in its review of the campus.

In a letter to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, the U.S. Department of Education took issue with many aspects of the agency's review process, including the lack of faculty on its teams, among others.

The accrediting agency decided in July to end City College's official recognition next year after finding that the two year-school had failed to improve its fiscal planning, administration and student support services, among other programs.

If the college, the largest in the nation, loses its accreditation, it also could lose state aid and could close. It remains unclear, however, what effects the education department's letter may have on the status of City College.

The accrediting agency was faulted for not clearly identifying deficiencies and allowing the college to be out of compliance with standards for more than two years. And the department identified the appearance of a conflict of interest because one of the evaluating team members was the husband of commission President Barbara Beno.

Beno could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The commission was given one year to correct the issues "in order to avoid initiation of an action to limit, suspend or terminate ACCJC's recognition," Kay W. Gilcher, director of the Department of Education's accrediting group, wrote in the letter that was sent Tuesday.

The education department launched its inquiry after faculty unions filed a 300-page complaint. On Wednesday, the faculty groups urged the commission to withdraw its action against the 78-year-old institution.

"This letter powerfully validates our complaints … and confirms what we have known now for some time, that the ACCJC has operated as a rogue agency and created a climate of fear and retaliation throughout the community college system," Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, said during a telephone news conference.

The accrediting commission, a private, nonprofit regional agency that is part of the Western Assn. of Schools and Colleges, must be recognized by the federal government to review colleges. An application to renew its authority will be heard in the fall.

In a press release, the commission said it was disappointed in the department's findings and would make "necessary policy changes to appropriately address the department's concerns."

But the agency said the findings included some factual errors. It defended its actions, saying, for example, that it acted in a "timely fashion" in moving last month to terminate City College's accreditation after a 2012 review.

The commission also questioned the department's finding on faculty representation, saying "directions to accreditors remain vague and will require clarification."

California Community Colleges Chancellor Brice W. Harris appointed a special trustee last month to govern the multi-campus institution, which traditionally has served more than 80,000 students annually.

The Department of Education doesn't have the authority to require the commission to change any accreditation decision it has made, spokeswoman Jane Glickman said.

Many educators and others have become concerned at the large numbers of community colleges cited by the commission for failing to maintain standards.

Harris created a task force to study ways to smooth accrediting procedures at two-year schools. Rather than wade into the commission dispute, he is focused on fixing the problems that exist at City College, spokesman Paul Feist said.

On the first day of classes Wednesday, enrollment of about 25,800 students was down 10% compared to last fall, Feist said. Fallout from the accreditation fight is one of many factors for the decline that officials said could also include more people choosing to work rather than attend college.

A City College faculty representative said spirits on campus were lifted somewhat by the recent events.

"The first day of the semester is really about focusing on students, getting them into classes, so the excitement of that first day of school is really there," said English instructor Alisa Messer, who is president of the campus faculty union. "The mood is relatively positive even under challenging circumstances."

From San Diego County Office of Education to County Clerk, Ernie Dronenburg ignores the law

If it weren't for Bob Filner's meltdown, Ernie Dronenburg would be a national story.

San Diego’s Other Embarrassing Leader
By: Sara Libby
Voice of San Diego
July 23, 2013

Bob Filner’s loss is Ernie Dronenburg’s gain.

The incredibly disturbing allegations against the mayor – which reached new heights Monday with a sensational Gloria Allred press conference – have effectively sucked all the oxygen out of the room, sparing another San Diego elected official national embarrassment.

Dronenburg filed a petition Friday that would allow him to continue denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, in spite of a recent Supreme Court ruling that spurred the state to allow them again. He defended his actions in a Tuesday press conference, even after the attorney general’s office urged the court to reject his bid.

Here are a few reasons we should make some room for Dronenburg in the shame spotlight.

He is going back on his word.
Ernie Dronenburg

Dronenburg is a conservative Republican. But he earned an endorsement from CityBeat in 2010 in large part because “he’s promised us that if Prop. 8 is ultimately negated, his office will treat same-sex couples with respect and dignity.”

Now, Dronenburg is seizing on what he sees as a legal loophole in order to avoid doing precisely what he promised. Dronenburg is arguing that the Supreme Court’s decision last month only cleared the way for same-sex marriages to resume in the jurisdiction where the original suit was filed. That means he believes gay marriage should only move forward in Los Angeles and Alameda counties, the two counties named in the injunction and the suit against Prop. 8.

Here’s how the group representing Dronenberg described the argument to San Diego Rostra:

Because the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry vacated the Ninth Circuit’s decision only, there is no appellate decision holding that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. As a result, Proposition 8 is still good law, and the District Court injunction against should apply only to the parties in that case.

Dronenburg and the group representing him, the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, have said the petition merely seeks clarity on the issue. But that doesn’t add up: If he was simply seeking guidance, why did he enlist an “expert on countering the gay agenda,” Charles Limandri, to file the petition on his behalf?

Dronenburg also promised throughout his campaign to eliminate red tape for those who came through his office by making more documents available online, and bringing more uniformity to the assessment process. Now, instead of streamlining, he’s throwing the ultimate roadblock in front of gay couples by possibly refusing to perform a key function of his office.

It’s rare that assessors’ campaign promises receive much press, and rarer still that such promises are ever revisited.

The state attorney general’s office quickly swatted down Dronenburg’s issue – “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,” Kamala Harris said in a statement. (Disclosure: My husband works for the attorney general’s office.)

Dronenburg’s actions cloud San Diego’s history of bipartisan support for same-sex couples.

For all the ridicule that San Diego’s pension scandal, and now the Filner crisis, has wrought upon the city, San Diego has a proud tradition of leaders from both parties who have spoken up on behalf of equality.

Republicans Jerry Sanders, Carl DeMaio, Bonnie Dumanis, Kevin Faulconer and others have all expressed support for same-sex marriage over the years. Sanders’ leadership, especially, drew the eyes of the nation to San Diego for all the right reasons.

When the Filner scandal first emerged, many pointed to the San Diego Pride Festival as a reason to maintain, well, pride in the city.

Dronenburg’s actions don’t erase all that, but they do complicate the picture.

He’s a fiscal conservative who’s throwing away money.

In this May 2010 Q-and-A, Dronenburg offers up some pretty basic conservative orthodoxy: “I think that taxes are a drag on the economy. That means the more taxes you give the government, the less that money is going into the economy.”

But when it comes to same-sex marriage, that assessment flies in the face of what researchers say will be a boon for the state economy. KPCC reported last month:

The state of California could gain $46 million in tax and fee revenue from same-sex weddings and there will be a boost of $492 million to the state’s economy over the next three years, according to the Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA School of Law.

The county isn’t really in a position to be turning down more revenue at the moment. Indeed, Supervisor Greg Cox tried to distance the supervisors from Dronenburg’s decision in a statement Friday: “No one else from the county was consulted or had any part of this court action, including the Board of Supervisors. The county’s position is and always has been that we, the county, will follow applicable law with regards to same-sex marriage.”

The county clerk’s mission statement includes this line: “to provide prompt and courteous service to the public.” Nothing says prompt and courteous like holding up people’s marriages because you disapprove of their lifestyle.v In the end, both Filner and Dronenburg’s actions come down to stripping people of dignity.

But what separates them is that if the allegations against Filner are true, they’d violate his own stated commitment to equality. Dronenburg, on the other hand, believes his actions are part of his duty as an elected official. He said so at his Tuesday press conference, though he also admitted that the petition was “all done on my own dollars,” which contradicts his insistence that it was part of his official duties.

Filner’s damage is being contained and investigated. But Dronenburg seems free and determined to pursue more.

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.