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.

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.

Former Donovan State Prison guard Art Moreno seems to take advantage of his partner's new job--or is David Bejarano asking too much for Security Firm?

Somebody's being unreasonable here, and it's hard to know who it is. Perhaps Art Moreno figured a huge windfall had ended up in his lap when Bejarano was chosen as Chula Vista's top cop. The new job means Bejarano must give up the company. Bejarano says either his partner pays for his half or the company should be dissolved. But maybe the problem is this: perhaps the company isn't really worth much without Bejarano in it.


Top Chula Vista cop, partner in dispute
Police chief co-owns security company
By Tanya Sierra
San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE
May 7, 2010

In addition to being Chula Vista’s police chief, where he earns an annual salary of $187,000, David Bejarano is involved in a number of other activities. Among them:

• Chula Vista Elementary School District trustee

• Co-owner of Presidential Security Services

• Vibra Bank board member

• South Bay Community Services board member

• Consultant for personal injury law firm Tatro & Zamoyski

CHULA VISTA — A business partner has accused Chula Vista Police Chief David Bejarano of writing fraudulent checks on the private security firm’s account, an allegation that the city forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office.

City policy prohibits police officers from owning or working for private security firms in Chula Vista, and Bejarano’s efforts to dissociate himself from Chula Vista-based Presidential Security are at the root of the business partners’ dispute.

Bejarano co-owns Presidential Security Services with former Donovan State Prison guard Art Moreno. Bejarano stepped down as president of the company in August when he became police chief. About that time, he also curtailed his duties at the firm and wanted his name removed from advertising, marketing and other public material...

Bejarano’s lawyer, Joseph Casas, said the chief is the victim of a smear campaign. He added that his client’s name was removed from bank records without proper authority...

The corporation’s board of directors is composed of Moreno and his wife, Colleen, and Bejarano and his wife, Esperanza.

Bejarano, a former San Diego police chief, has filed suit in San Diego Superior Court to disband the company. In the suit, Bejarano alleges that Moreno and his wife “repeatedly breached their fiduciary duties and wrongfully acted in their own self-interest.”...

Presidential continues to pay David Bejarano a salary. Last year, he earned $73,820 with the firm and charged about $15,000 on a company credit card, Moreno said.

City Attorney Bart Miesfeld said as long as Bejarano is trying to cut his ties with the company, and as long as his responsibilities there do not interfere with his duties as police chief, he is not violating city policy that prohibits a police officer from working for or having a financial interest in a private police agency in the city.

Simon Mayeski, a member of California Common Cause’s San Diego chapter, questioned that assessment.

“I wonder why the city attorney is trying to write around this regulation, which sounds like a reasonable and necessary restriction,” Mayeski said. “It opens up way too many questions and puts the chief in a less-than-perfect position going about his business.”

Common Cause is a nonprofit that says it strives for an “open, honest and accountable government.”

Presidential Security has a number of contracts to provide security guards for Chula Vista businesses, including two shelters run by South Bay Community Services, where Bejarano serves as a board member.

City Councilmen Rudy Ramirez and Steve Castaneda said Thursday that Bejarano should have left Presidential Security by now.

“There should have been a specific timeline in which he had to divest himself from that business,” Castaneda said.

Mayor Cheryl Cox said she backs Sandoval and Miesfeld.

“I’m confident that the city manager and city attorney have done their due diligence,” she said.

[Due diligence? Does Cheryl Cox have any idea what that means? When she was a CVESD trustee, she helped make sure that no investigation was ever done regarding a 2001 report by two teachers that they believed there might be a mass shooting at Castle Park Elementary. At the same time, the district specifically claimed it had done its due diligence.]

Meanwhile, the future of Presidential Security and its 40 employees remains unclear.

After Bejarano was hired as police chief, he suggested to Moreno that they divide the company, according to an September e-mail exchange provided by Moreno.

“It can be done quickly, with minimal costs and you and your family can operate your share any way you want and my wife will operate our share,” Bejarano wrote to Moreno in a Sept. 28 e-mail.

Moreno said Bejarano should sell his interest in the company.

“Our last offer to him was $50,000, and we never heard back from him,” Moreno said.

Casas, Bejarano’s attorney, said Moreno has not made a serious offer.

“Mr. Moreno can put an offer on the table to us, which he has yet to do in any meaningful way,” Casas said.

A court date on Bejarano’s suit to disband the company has not been set.

Judge Rules Post on Cop-Rating Site is Protected Speech

Judge Rules Post on Cop-Rating Site is Protected Speech
By David Kravets
Wired
May 5, 2010

A federal judge has struck down a Florida law prohibiting the publication of a police officer’s name, phone number or address, calling the statute an unconstitutional restraint on speech.

The decision leaves Arizona, Colorado and Washington state with similar laws on the books. Florida authorities said Wednesday they were mulling whether to appeal.

...Robert Brayshaw, a 35-year-old apartment manager, brought the challenge to Florida’s law after he was briefly jail in 2008 for posting personally identifying information of a Tallahassee police officer on RateMyCop.com — a 2-year-old website that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community.

RateMyCop uses public records requests to gather the names and, in some cases, badge numbers of thousands of uniformed cops at police departments around the country, and allows users to post comments about police they’ve interacted with. The site’s launch in 2008 drew cries of outrage from police, who complained that they’d be put at risk if their names were on the internet.

Brayshaw used the site to post anonymous comments about Tallahassee Police Officer Annette Garrett, as well as her name and home address — information not normally cataloged by the site. He wrote that Garrett was rude to him when investigating a trespass call at an apartment complex he was managing.

“He had been investigated for a possible trespass charge, which he was never arrested for,” Brayshaw’s attorney, Anne Swerlick, said in a telephone interview. “He was unsatisfied by the way he was treated.”

The authorities subpoenaed RateMyCop and Brayshaw’s internet service provider to learn his identity, then booked him under the Florida law — a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail. The case was later dismissed against Brayshaw for procedural reasons, but he sued, claiming the statute chills his speech.

U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak in Tallahassee agreed, and awarded Brayshaw $25,000 in damages plus legal fees Friday.

The judge ruled the First Amendment does not protect “true threats, fighting words, incitements to imminent lawless action, and classes of lewd and obscene speech.” But publishing an officer’s phone number and address, he said, “is not in itself a threat or serious expression of an intent to commit an unlawful act of violence” (.pdf).

Smoak wrote that he appreciated the intent of the 38-year-old law, but noted that it went too far. “While the state interest of protecting police officers from harm or death may be compelling,” the judge said the law “was not narrowly tailored to serve this interest.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/first-amendment-cops/#ixzz0nSY21lt9

Why were Chelsea King and Amber Dubois treated so differently by San Diego law enforcement?

Amber Dubois, left, and Chelsea King







UPDATE: AMBER DUBOIS FOUND

I appreciate the difficult problem law enforcement faces when confronted with a missing person report. Most of the time missing teenagers do tend to show up at home without any effort of law enforcement. Running away is one of the things that teenagers tend to do now and again. Also, police had a more recent fix on exactly where Chelsea King was last seen. But if Amber Dubois had been found, whether alive or dead, and a kidnapper charged with abducting her, Chelsea King might be alive today.

It's actually in the interest of the clean-cut, high-achieving, happy-living-at-home children for society to take a keen interest in the wellbeing of children who are suspected of having run away.



2 Missing Teen Cases, 2 Different Police Responses
2 missing teen cases in California reflect different ways of handling by police, media
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
March 6, 2010 (AP)
The Associated Press

The disappearances of 14-year-old Amber Dubois and 17-year-old Chelsea King illustrate a sad fact: not all missing children cases are treated the same.

King was the focus of intense media attention and law enforcement effort, with hundreds of officers and thousands of volunteers joining the search for her. Yet, almost exactly a year earlier and about 10 miles from where King was last seen jogging, 14-year-old Dubois left home to walk to school, never to be seen again. But Dubois' case got little media attention and seemingly fewer law enforcement resources...

Chelsea disappeared Feb. 25, last seen in a park with running clothes. The case sparked a search involving about 1,500 law enforcement officials and thousands of volunteers. It ended five days later when a body was found in a shallow lakeside grave.

Amber was walking to school when she vanished a year ago just 10 miles north of the site where Chelsea was last seen. Leads went nowhere. The news media showed little interest...




Remains of Amber Dubois found in Pala
By Kristina Davis
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
March 7, 2010

...Her family said it was unlikely she ran away. She had no extra clothes, and she was excited to purchase a lamb she was going to raise through the school’s agricultural program. The $200 check she carried to school that day has never been cashed, police said...





Cases of Missing Women and Young Girls Get Varying Media Attention
Some Missing Persons Cases Captivate the Country While Others Get Little Notice
By RON CLAIBORNE and DAN PRZYGODA
March 7, 2010

Chelsea King was the focus of intense media attention and law enforcement effort, with hundreds of officers and thousands of volunteers joining the search for her.
Not all disappearances capture the media, public's attention in the same way.

Almost exactly a year earlier and about 10 miles from where King was last seen jogging, 14-year-old Amber Dubois left home to walk to school, never to be seen again. Yet, Dubois' case got far less media attention and seemingly fewer law enforcement resources...

ACORN Worker in Video Reported Duo to Police

See all ACORN posts.

ACORN Worker in Video Reported Duo to Police
September 22, 2009

NATIONAL CITY, Calif. — Police say a worker with the activist group ACORN who was caught on video giving advice about human smuggling to a couple posing as a pimp and a prostitute had reported the incident to authorities.

National City police said Monday that Juan Carlos Vera contacted his cousin, a police detective, to get advice on what to with information on possible human smuggling.

Vera was secretly filmed on Aug. 18 as part of a young couple's high-profile expose.

Police say he contacted law enforcement two days later. The detective consulted another police official who served on a federal human smuggling task force, who said he needed more details.

The ACORN employee responded several days later and explained that the information he received was not true and he had been duped...

The mob moll, the FBI agent and the journalist

A journalist came forward in New York recently to get an FBI agent off the hook for murder. It turned out that he had tapes of a mobster's girlfriend telling a different story than the one she told the court.

I love this story. The cop turns out not to be a murderer, the journalist saves the cop, and the big liar turns out to be the mob moll. There's even a prosecutor who admits he wrongly charged a man. God's in his heaven and all's right with the world.


Murder charges dropped against ex-FBI agent
By Michael Brick and Anahad O'connor
International Herald Tribune
November 1, 2007

Roy Lindley DeVecchio, the retired Federal Bureau of Investigation supervisor charged with murder, walked out of court a free man this morning after prosecutors dropped all charges against him in the wake of new evidence that the government's main witness changed her account and may face perjury charges.

The lead prosecutor, Michael Vecchione, announced the decision to dismiss all charges this morning in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, where DeVecchio, 67, was charged with helping a Mafia informer commit four murders in the 1980s and early 1990s. The trial, which began last month, was upended this week after a reporter revealed that he had taped interviews showing that the prosecution's main witness, Linda Schiro, a gangster's mistress, had given varying accounts and had damaged her credibility.

"Had we been provided with these tapes much earlier in the process, I dare say we would not have been here," Vecchione said as he stood before Justice Gustin Reichbach this morning. "The interest of justice at this point requires me to stand before you and ask you on behalf of the district attorney to dismiss or accept the dismissal of this indictment."

DeVecchio's lawyer, Douglas Grover, told the judge that he did not object to the prosecutor's request. Justice Reichbach then launched into a long speech in which he blasted the FBI for its handling of the informer, and concluded by dismissing all charges.

And with that, DeVecchio, wearing a slight smile on his face, turned around and strolled out of the courtroom as his supporters and fellow FBI agents gave him a round of applause. One of his supporters patted DeVecchio on the back as he made his way toward the exit and said simply, "I was right again."

The decision to drop the charges was a monumental reversal for the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes. Last year, when Hynes filed state murder charges despite a federal investigation that had cleared DeVecchio, he described the case as "the most stunning example of official corruption that I have ever seen."

Standing down now brought a sensational ending to a case rife with intrigue, plagued with obstacles and built squarely on the word of Schiro, once a Mafia assassin's mistress, whose shifting accounts have been increasingly evident since the new investigation nearly two years ago. Justice Reichbach warned Schiro in court on Tuesday that she could face perjury charges and appointed a lawyer, Gary Farrell, to represent her.

Tom Robbins, the reporter, who works for The Village Voice, said he had struggled with his decision to come forward.

"I did not know what else to do," Robbins said, adding that he had chosen to disclose the tapes after hearing the testimony this week and its role in the case. He said: "No journalist ever wants to go against a source. It's against our creed."

The trial centers on DeVecchio's relationship with his informer, Gregory Scarpa, a notorious capo in the Colombo crime family. Scarpa, known as the Grim Reaper, died in prison in 1994. In the case on trial, state prosecutors accused DeVecchio of giving Scarpa orders to kill rival informers and tips on pending arrests.

But signs of the case's weakness were evident from the start.

Within months of Scarpa's death, investigators for the Office of Professional Responsibility, the internal affairs arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, interviewed Schiro. Their inquiry failed to produce sufficient evidence to charge or discipline DeVecchio.

In 1995, federal prosecutors admitted during a trial that DeVecchio had given some confidential information to Scarpa. Their disclosure led to acquittals for several members of the crime family, but DeVecchio denied any wrongdoing.

In 1997, a federal judge, Jack Weinstein, wrote: "DeVecchio and Scarpa's relationship reflects, to a degree, the manner in which the FBI and other investigatory agencies conduct business with top echelon informants and the hazards associated with doing so."

As the accusations faded from the headlines, Schiro continued to give interviews to writers proposing books about her life with Scarpa. In 1998, she filed an affidavit in federal court in Brooklyn on behalf of Scarpa's son, Gregory Scarpa Jr., who was facing racketeering charges. But when the time came to testify in that case, on Oct. 15, 1998, a judge warned Schiro that she could face perjury charges because of her prior statements to investigators, transcripts show. Schiro left court and elected not to testify.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/01/america/01fbi.4.php

Welcome home, Genarlow Wilson

21-year-old Genarlow Wilson is back home with his mother and nine-year-old sister in Georgia, thanks to four Georgia Supreme Court justices who decided that it was cruel and unusual to keep him incarcerated.

This was a big disappointment to prosecutor David McDade of Douglas County, who kept Genarlow in jail for four extra months while he appealed a previous ruling that Genarlow should be released.

Genarlow spent two years in prison for going to a party when he was seventeen, and allowing a fifteen year old girl to have oral sex with him. He would have spent 8 more years in prison if Georgia legislature had had their way. Did I mention that Genarlow is black? The case doesn't make sense without that information. (The case doesn't make sense anyway, but this fact makes it easier to believe that this happened.)

What's up with Bill Brown, Sheriff of Santa Barbara County?

Dear Sheriff Brown:

When Jim Anderson was sheriff, I had no trouble getting the sheriff’s designee to come to a deposition. I just mailed a $150 check and a subpoena to the sheriff’s office.

Is the policy still the same, or do I have to hire a process server in Santa Barbara to personally serve you?

If I continue to receive no response from you to my many communications, I will assume that either you are trying to keep the facts covered up in this particular case, or you have changed Sheriff Jim Anderson’s policy.

Yours truly,
Maura Larkins

I like San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender

Lots of people like San Diego Sheriff Bill Kolender, me included. People who like Kolender are discussing whether it's a good idea for him to run again. The recent San Diego Union Tribune article about him was both respectful and informative. Bill is slowing down, so it's appropriate to think about a replacement.

I'm glad Bill has friends like Walter F. Ekhard and Bob Burgreen, who defended him in today's SDUT Letters section, but I'm afraid that his friends are seeing Kolender's impressive past, and missing the current situation. "I have seen no evidence of dementia," says Burgreen. Well, I haven't either. But that doesn't mean everyone who works with him has to keep his mouth shut.

Churchill declined mentally; so did Ronald Reagan. It can happen to the best of us. It's more noticeable if a person was high-achieving, and it sure beats dying young. I would prefer that John F. Kennedy be suffering from Alzheimer's now, than to have died in 1963.

My concern is that a leader who is weak can be used by others. This concentrates too much power in the hands of those who are doing the using. Perhaps this is exactly why some people want Kolender to run again: they want to use him.

San Diego Police arrest man for trying to rescue police vehicle

A disturbance at Pacific Beach on Labor Day got worse when police arrested a man who was trying to help them. The man was trying to rescue a police all-terrain vehicle that had ended up in the surf. As a result of the arrest, the crowd began yelling and throwing sand and cans at the police, who called in 60 reinforcements, 40 of them in riot gear.

Onlookers said that officers were spraying mace at innocent people.

Police Chief Landsdowne admitted, "It's possible some people got some Mace on them who weren't involved." If we extrapolate from this statement, using the formula William Landsdowne regularly uses when reporting crimes statistics, we must suspect that there was indeed some overreaction on the part of the police.

I FOUND THIS ARTICLE AND PHOTO IN THE RUSSIAN NEWSPAPER PRAVDA.
[We baby boomers remember when Pravda was considered the voice of the devil.]

Police end massive brawl at San Diego's Pacific Beach
09/04/2007 Source: AP ©

Police used smoke and tear gas to break up a hostile crowd throwing bottles and cans during a massive brawl at San Diego's Pacific Beach.

Sixteen people were arrested and face charges of fighting and being drunk in public stemming from the Labor Day holiday incident. The size of the crowd was estimated at about 500.

After lifeguards called police about a fistfight, hecklers began throwing bottles and sand at police who were writing citations, prompting a call for riot-control teams, said San Diego Police Department spokeswoman Monica Munoz.

Lifeguards evacuated four towers, removed their uniforms and ran into the water to waiting rescue boats, Lifeguard Service Lt. Nick Lerma said.

"It just got out of control," Lerma said.

It was not immediately known what triggered the fight.

A police helicopter hovered over the beach while officers on the ground formed a skirmish line along the boardwalk.

No officers were injured.

Lifeguards said an estimated 364,000 people visited San Diego beaches on Monday.

Deborah Garvin finds a happy home

"When whoever put that letter in front of me -- and I'm not positive it was Jim or whoever -- I literally wasn't paying that much attention to it," he said. "I obviously was not as careful as I should have been. I don't know, but I don't consider myself an oaf."

The above quote from San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders can be found in a story by Scott Lewis in Voice of San Diego at http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/09/07/columnists/scott_lewis/34lewis090607.txt

I was fascinated to see that this quote was almost identical to what Santa Barbara Sheriff's Commander Sam Gross said when I asked him under oath about a false declaration he had signed.

The declaration was prepared by San Diego attorneys Deborah Garvin and John McCormick.

These longtime law partners are no longer together, but Deborah Garvin has found a happy home at Hudson & Currier law firm in San Diego.

Read more here.

Man spared hours before his scheduled execution because police suborned perjury

Troy Davis, 38, has been taken off death row in Georgia because seven of nine witnesses against him now say that they were pressured by police to lie under oath in the case. Other witnesses have implicated another man in the killing of a Savannah police officer in 1989. There was no physical evidence against Davis.

Here's a story about the case:


Some Witnesses Now Say He Is Innocent
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 16, 2007


SAVANNAH, Ga. -- A Georgia man is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for killing a police officer in 1989, even though the case against him has withered in recent years as most of the key witnesses at his trial have recanted and in some cases said they lied under pressure from police.

Prosecutors discount the significance of the recantations and argue that it is too late to present such evidence. But supporters of Troy Davis, 38, and some legal scholars say the case illustrates the dangers wrought by decades of Supreme Court decisions and new laws that have rendered the courts less likely to overturn a death sentence.

Three of four witnesses who testified at trial that Davis shot the officer have signed statements contradicting their identification of the gunman. Two other witnesses -- a fellow inmate and a neighborhood acquaintance who told police that Davis had confessed to the shooting -- have said they made it up.

Other witnesses point the finger not at Davis but at another man. Yet none has testified during his appeals because federal courts barred their testimony.

"It's getting scary," Davis said by phone last week. "They don't want to hear the new facts."

Chula Vista Police Department 2005-06 hoax on behalf of Cheryl Cox and the Santa Barbara Sheriff

Chula Vista is not the place to go if you are looking for equal protection of the law. It makes a big difference to the CVPD if you're a Republican or Democrat. Republicans like Cheryl Cox get help from the CVPD in covering up crimes and other wrongdoing.

On the other hand, a Democratic employee of the City of Chula Vista who took two hours off work to spy on a Cheryl Cox fundraiser has been charged by Bonnie Dumanis with perjury for not admitting he was doing political work on the job.

There's a lot of political work being done on the job in Chula Vista, but you don't hear much about the work done by Republicans in the police department.

The Chula Vista Police Department is a friend of Cheryl Cox, who was a Chula Vista Elementary school board member before she was elected mayor. The CVPD failed for over a year to investigate a financial crime at Castle Park Elementary School reported in 2005. Why? The CVPD has a knee-jerk policy of covering up wrongdoing by Cheryl Cox and the other board members of Chula Vista Elementary School District, who include Pamela Smith, Patrick Judd, Larry Cunningham and Bertha Lopez.

In 2006 I pursued a public records request for months before the CVPD admitted that it had a record of a police visit to Castle Park Elementary on April 21, 2001. When they decided I wasn't likely to go away, I finally received a copy of the Castle Park Elementary School "call" report.*

But the Chula Vista Police Department was doing a lot more than illegally hiding public records in its efforts to support Cheryl Cox's campaign for mayor of Chula Vista in 2006.

Between 2000 and 2006 a long string of crimes had been committed at Castle Park Elementary which resulted from criminal actions by a Santa Barbara Sheriff's deputy and his sister, a teacher in Chula Vista. Cheryl Cox and CVESD committed bigger and bigger crimes to prevent the exposure of earlier, smaller crimes and violations of law committed at Castle Park Elementary in 2000 and 2001.

See "Castle Park Elementary," "Teacher Reports," and "Law Enforcement" at MAURALARKINS.COM (link available on this blog's link list).

In 2005-2006, the most newsworthy crime being covered up by the CVPD and the media to protect Cheryl Cox and the CVESD school board was the embezzlement of about $20,000 from the Castle Park Elementary PTA.

Apparently fearing that this crime would eventually become public knowlege, perhaps because it was being reported by this blog and the San Diego Education Report website, the Chula Vista Police Department seems to have developed a plan in November 2006 to create the appearance that it was no longer covering up the embezzlement. Of course, by November 7, 2006, the election was over. The cover-up was successful. Larry Cunningham crowed that voters had seen throught the lies of his opponents. The truth is that the voters saw almost nothing because Larry and Cheryl had spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to cover up crimes and other violations of law at CVESD.

The police asked former Castle Park PTA president Kim Simmons to come in the CVPD office, where she was interviewed and arrested. Was Simmons arrested after a careful investigation? No, the CVPD does not carefully investigate incidents that might embarrass Cheryl Cox and the school board. CVPD arrested Kim Simmons simply to create the impression that they weren't covering up Castle Park crimes, and passed on their humble efforts to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

What did Bonnie Dumanis do? Prosecute the crime? Not likely. Just as she had refused to prosecute CVESD Assistant Superintedent Richard Werlin for obstruction of justice, she also refused to prosecute Kim Simmons.

Why? Maybe because Kim Simmons knew too much about crimes at Castle Park Elementary.

Did I mention that Kim Simmons was a close friend of transferred teacher Robin Donlan, a member of a powerful teacher clique at Castle Park Elementary that received a great deal of support form local papers when she and several other teachers were transferred out of the school?

Robin Donlan and her friends created a bizarre brouhaha, in which they and the media attacked the principal of Castle Park Elementary without ever mentioning the crimes of which Donlan had been accused. The truth was that the principal was attacked for daring to challenge the authority of the "family" that had created a crime wave at the school.

In October 2004, Kim Simmons entered a Castle Park Elementary classroom, and asked to use the school phone during class time so she could call up Robin Donlan and ask for instructions on how to proceed with her attacks on the principal of the school. The teacher gave permission, and took the opportunity to explain to her students that she was "mad at the principal." (There has been a dearth of professionalism at Castle Park Elementary since this "Castle Park Family" teacher group took over.)

Kim Simmons, along with Gina Boyd, the president of the teacher union, and school site council President Felicia Starr were working with transferred teacher Robin Donlan to get rid of the first principal who had had the nerve to stand up to the arbitrary power of the group of teachers who ruled the school.

What was Cheryl Cox's role in all this? She and all the other board members authorized the payment of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz law firm to represent Robin Donlan and cover up the crimes initiated by her and Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin and several other CVESD officers and employees in 2000 and 2001. After fostering perjury and other crimes, and using huge sums of public money to keep bad teachers in power, Cheryl Cox ran for mayor on a platform of "charater" and "fiscal responsibility."

The San Diego Union Tribune has maintained to this day a complete black-out regarding crimes committed by Robin Donlan, Richard Werlin, Cheryl Cox and others at CVESD. On November 17, 2006 the SDUT published a small article about the arrest of former PTA Kim Simmons. The story immediately went into "partially hidden" status in the Union-Tribunes archives. (If someone does a signonsandiego search for "castle park PTA Simmons," he'll get a message back saying "No articles found.) The article can only be found by leaving "simmons" out of the search. If you already know about Kimberlee Simmons, the San Diego Union Tribune doesn't want you to know more.

Of course, there has been no follow-up to the SDUT story. But there should be--because the story created the false impression that the police were actually intending to do something about crime at Castle Park Elementary. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The police waited until Cox was elected, and then they did their hoax arrest, but Kim Simmons was never charged with anything.

When wil the SD Union Tribune publish the full story, revealing Kim Simmons' close association to Robin Donlan and the "Castle Park Five"? When will the San Diego Union Tribune apologize for so maliciously attacking the honorable and decent principal of Castle Park Elementary on behalf of Robin Donlan, Kim Simmons, and the rest of their clique, after the group was found to be responsible for yet another crime after the SDUT had written so much on its behalf? How about it, Don Sevrens?

The SDUT November 2006 story about Simmons arrest was published to create the impression that Bonnie Dumanis and the Chula Vista Police Department are not covering up crimes involving Cheryl Cox and Castle Park Elementary School. It appears that Simmons wasn't really the fall guy; she was actually the pretend fall guy.

Bonnie Dumanis, why don't you investigate the use of public resources for political purposes at CVPD? Why don't you investigate crimes at Chula Vista Elementary School District, including perjury by Cheryl Cox and Robin Donlan? Or do you only use the public resources under your control to investigate Democrats?


*The police "call' report that was hidden for months by the CVPD revealed Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin's attempt to silence a teacher who had suggested that the media might investigate what was happening at the school in 2001. The teacher clearly knew nothing about the media in San Diego. The San Diego Union Tribune, the Chula Vista Star-News and La Prensa still have not reported those crimes, although all three newspapers have long known about them. These three publications exposed their lack of journalistic ethics when they published a deluge of letters, articles and editorials defending the teacher, Robin Colls/Donlan who initiated the crime wave! All three papers were incensed when Robin Colls was transferred from Castle Park Elementary. Richard Werlin, who called the police when the teacher mentioned the media, didn't correctly estimate the power of his Chula Vista Elementary School Board bosses, including Cheryl Cox, to silence the media. Werlin did go on to achieve a certain amount of notoriety for his use of the police to silence teachers. He had second-grade teacher Jenny Mo arrested in front of her students at his new school district in Richmond, California this year when the teacher went to the media with a story about bullying at her school. Of course, Werlin didn't step up and take the credit/blame for the arrest. He let the principal sit in the hot seat. He took indefinite sick leave from his position.

Los Angeles Catholic Diocese Finally Does the Right Thing

CARDINAL ROGER MAHONEY HAS FINALLY DONE THE RIGHT THING.

CARDINAL BROM OF SAN DIEGO IS KEEPING HIS DIOCESE FINANCIALLY RICH BUT MORALLY IMPOVERISHED, by hiding assets in bandruptcy court.


From the Associated Press
July 16, 2007

"A judge today approved a landmark $660 million settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and more than 500 alleged victims of clergy abuse.

"The deal was formally approved in a dramatic hearing marked by the sobs of victims and their attorneys, and a MOMENT OF SILENCE FOR THE VICTIMS WHO DIED DURING THE YEARS OF NEGOTIATIONS.

""This is the right result," said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz. "Settling the cases was the right thing to do and it was done by dint of a number of extremely talented and dedicated people putting in an awful lot of time."

"The deal came after more than five years of negotiations and is by far the largest payout by any diocese since the clergy abuse scandal emerged in Boston in 2002. The amount averages a little more than $1.3 million per plaintiff, although individual payouts will vary according to the severity and duration of the abuse.

""It's their courage and commitment that made this possible and I think they deserve a tremendous debt of gratitude," [Ray] Bouchet said, struggling to hold back tears.

""I know it's hard for most of the victims whose scars are very deep ... and I know many will never forgive the cardinal," he said. "But he took steps that I think that only he could take and if left to the lawyers and others in the church he would not have settled this case."

MY COMMENT: I was watching the news yesterday, I'm pretty sure it was CNN, when a Los Angeles lady in wide-rimmed black hat said words to the effect of, "I don't believe all the claims were legitimate. And if they were, they should have just forgiven."

Just because someone works hard to demand reparation for horrible crimes does not mean that they haven't forgiven their attackers. I think victims too often are made to feel that they themselves are responsible for the crimes committed against them, but this is a new one. Does this lady think that NO criminal should EVER repair the damage he's done? I doubt it. I suspect that this lady has a bad case of "Don't rock the sacred boat" syndrome, even when the boat is filled with pedophile rapists.

A False Police Report

Usually people don't get charged when they make a false police report, but this man in Los Angeles got the book thrown at him.

City worker lied about attack, police say
By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times
July 13, 2007

A former receptionist for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was charged Thursday with two misdemeanor counts of filing a false police report for allegedly lying about an incident in which he was stabbed last month.

Authorities said Nestor Lopez falsely claimed he had been attacked by a group of men in downtown Los Angeles. Lopez, who was bloody from stab wounds when he encountered City Hall security guards after the incident about 3:30 a.m. June 3, reported that he was the victim of a robbery attempt.

But Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney's office, said a police investigation concluded that Lopez had been slashed by a homeless woman. Mateljan said that Lopez startled the woman after touching her while she was sleeping under a blanket near the Civic Center subway station.

Americans are also harmed by bureaucrats

I think that the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, 62 (see previous post), was excessive. It was done to help China save face after so many American pets died from melamine in wheat gluten from China. It was unfair because corruption is a way of life in China, and one man was singled out.

In the US we have the same problem China has: our food and safety regulators disregard science and punish whistleblowers in order to benefit their patrons. An example of this was when the Food and Drug Administration delayed release of information about a mad cow case in the US. Another came when the FDA forbade any company in the US from doing more mad cow testing than that prescribed by the FDA.

When Bureaucrats do favors for money, do they deserve to be executed?

For 2 Children, Ban of a Drug Came Too Late
New York Times
Photographs by Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Du Haipeng, 6, with his mother, Fu Liguang, in Harbin, China. Today, the boy rarely speaks.


By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: July 13, 2007
BEIJING — While visiting relatives a year ago, Du Haipeng, 5, came down with a sore throat. Doctors prescribed a Chinese antibiotic, Xinfu. The boy’s reaction to the drug was so violent, he had to be taken to a nearby hospital.

“I remember clearly that I was shearing sheep when I got a call from my sister and her husband,” said Du Xinglong, 36, Haipeng’s father. “When I rushed to the hospital my son had already fallen into a coma.”

A week later, regulators banned Xinfu. Authorities eventually determined that the State Food and Drug Administration had granted the drug’s maker a seal of approval, even though Xinfu was not properly produced or sterilized.

The scandal was just one symptom of an ailing regulatory regime. Last year, the government uncovered 167,000 examples of illegal production and trade in medicine and medical equipment. In some cases, illegal factories are fined or closed; but their owners rarely face prosecution, and the problem persists.

Because of the public furor Xinfu set off, its producer, the Anhui Huayuan Worldbest Biology Company, was an exception. Several senior executives at the company were dismissed; its production license was revoked; and last November, according to state-run media, the company’s general manager committed suicide.

That was too late for a 6-year-old named Liu Sichen. She had been given Xinfu for a tonsil infection. Soon she fell into a coma, and after several days she died.

“She was about to go to elementary school,” said Sichen’s mother, Guo Ping. “Her father bought her a new pink backpack.”

In the end, at least 14 people died after taking Xinfu, and perhaps hundreds more were severely sickened. Du Haipeng woke from his coma after 22 days of emergency treatment. But he wasn’t himself. “He didn’t recognize us,” said his mother, Fu Liguang, 38. “Over the next two and a half months, he didn’t say a single word.”

Today, the boy rarely speaks. He wets his pants, and his doctors say he may have permanent brain damage.

His father has no sympathy for Zheng Xiaoyu, the State Food and Drug Administration’s former chief, executed on Tuesday.

“If he hadn’t approved that company our family wouldn’t be shattered,” Mr. Du said. “He should have been killed a long time ago.”

Rujun Shen contributed reporting.

Lawsuit against law firm

from Voice of San Diego:

A National Law Firm's illegal practices have a San Diego connection

On my first day at voiceofsandiego.org, back in those innocent, hazy days of 2005, I was asked to type up a quick snippet on the legal woes of one William S. Lerach, a very prominent San Diego attorney.

I must confess that, at the time, I was rather baffled about what Lerach’s troubles were all about.

This article in today’s Los Angeles Times has done a great job filling me in as to the details of the case against Lerach and others.

The story focuses on David Bershad, an ex-partner at Milberg-Weiss, a New York-based firm that, according to the Times, made more than $45 billion for investors in large shareholder class action lawsuits. The firm is accused of running a huge kickback scheme.

On Monday, Bershad reportedly made a plea agreement. According to the Times, Bershad’s guilty plea could spell trouble for Lerach and Milberg-Weiss co-founder Melvyn I. Weiss:

Bershad's plea in Los Angeles federal court "makes it practically inevitable" that the prosecutors will indict Lerach and Weiss, said John C. Coffee, a Columbia Law School professor.

"This is playing out with the slow inevitability of a Greek tragedy," Coffee said.


Here’s what the Milberg-Weiss lawyers are accused of doing:

Milberg's enormous success was attributable in part to the fact that the firm often was the first to file a lawsuit against a company and thus became the lead lawyers in a class action against it. Prosecutors have alleged that Milberg won the race to the courthouse and a larger share of legal fees because it kept a stable of plaintiffs on standby to whom it paid kickbacks, often through intermediaries.


The Times reports that Bershad told the court Monday that he and two other individuals, (identified only as Plaintiff A and Plaintiff B but “widely believed” to be Lerach and Weiss), pooled money into a fund kept in Bershad’s office that was used to supply cash for secret payments to be paid to plaintiffs and others.

Here’s a bit more on Lerach from the story:

Lerach, 61, is planning to retire this year as head of his firm, Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, according to reports published Monday. Dan Newman, a spokesman for the firm, said Lerach hadn't set a date for his departure, but "he's promised to retire before he will allow the Milberg Weiss matter to become a distraction to this firm."


The remaining defendants’ trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 8, the Times reports.


-- WILL CARLESS

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

CVESD's Trojan Horse: Richard Werlin

How did Richard T. Werlin get from CVESD to WCCCUSD? Who will be the next Jenny Mo?

This morning I read this post from the Seattle Times, February 12, 2007, "Every day for more than five months, Jeff Schmieder walked hundreds of laps around the courtyard at the Regional Justice Center in Kent, where he was serving time for a first-degree rape he did not commit. "Walking was the only thing I had left. It just gave me a lot of time to think to myself and get my head straight," said Schmieder, who was convicted in 1998 and faced more than 11 years in prison. "Everyone in there says they're not guilty, of course. But when you're really not, it does things to your mind that you can't even imagine." Schmieder, 49, and another man, Mark Clark, were freed in 1999 after NEW EVIDENCE SHOWED THE ALLEGED VICTIM WAS IN JAIL HERSELF AT THE TIME SHE SAID SHE WAS ATTACKED."

It amazes me that intelligent people are so willing to believe an accusation.

In my case, a homeless person to whom I had given shelter was believed by police when she told them I was mentally ill, violent, and had a hand gun. They gave her MY KEYS and took me to jail FOR TRESPASSING!!!

But for some reason, no one wants to believe an employee's accusations against an employer.

People assume, for example, that an Assistant Superintendent of a school district is not emotionally troubled, dishonest and hostile. Someone in such a position can say ANYTHING about an employee, no matter how preposterous and false, and it will be believed.

Recently a teacher in Richmond was put on leave for "erratic" behavior. I happen to know the district administrator who put her on leave, and I know that he has a serious problem with dishonesty and false accusations. His behavior perfectly fits the description "erratic." When this man loses his temper, it's not a pretty sight. He goes off like a loose canon. Werlin caused the "erratic" teacher in Richmond to be handcuffed in front of her second-grade students and jailed for two days on suspicion of holding her students hostage--because she didn't leave the school in the middle of the day when she was placed on administrative leave for reporting school bullying to the media.

About two years ago I put the facts about this individual, Richard Werlin, former Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources at Chula Vista Elementary School District, on my website.

So why did West Contra Costa County Union School District hire him as their Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources in 2006? Did they flunk Google? No, they just doubted that what I was saying was the truth. After all, he was the district administrator, and I was just a teacher.

I wonder what Werlin told the folks at WCCCUSD was his reason for leaving Chula Vista Elementary School District? They must have wondered why he hadn't worked in so long. Apparently they didn't consider the possibility that he might have left CVESD because the district was unhappy about paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. (CVESD clearly didn't think that Werlin's crimes and other violations of law were reason to fire him.)

Or maybe their motives weren't so innocent. Be honest, folks in Richmond. Your district has done the same things that Werlin did, hasn't it? Didn't you back up administrators even though you knew they had done wrong? You need to keep teachers in line, right? The facts of any individual case don't matter to you. What matters is to keep everything under control, and present an appearance of having no problems, so those in power can stay in power, right? You'd rather protect the guilty than actually solve problems, wouldn't you? Or perhaps you just do what your lawyers tell you to do, committing perjury when they tell you to, fighting lawsuits you ought to settle. You don't stop to think that IT'S NOT IN THE LAWYERS' BEST INTEREST FOR PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED. THE MORE PROBLEMS YOU HAVE, THE MORE MONEY THEY GET.

I recommend that the entire staff of Sheldon Elementary School (that would include teacher Jenny Mo), participate in a class by Patrick Lencioni on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team. You've got serious problems at Sheldon Elementary. I somewhat regret that I left so quietly when Werlin put me on administrative leave in 2001. But I'm afraid that our newspapers are so protective of the corrupt school districts and teacher unions in San Diego that the exact same scenario could have happened at Castle Park Elementary, and it wouldn't have made it into the newspaper. The public in Chula Vista still isn't aware of how serious the problems are at my old school, Castle Park Elementary. Even when then three teachers who made false accusations against me were transferred out of Castle Park Elementary in 2004, the papers never mentioned my case, even though I had fully informed them.

I am afraid that Jenny Mo will never return to Sheldon Elementary. That's how the system works. But something should be done about the out-of-control principal and staff at Sheldon.

In addition to getting the staff of Sheldon Elementary functioning in a positive manner, Superintendent Bruce Harter should fire Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin. Werlin triggered the fiasco at Sheldon Elementary, a scenario so bizarre that only Richard Werlin's involvement can explain it.

March 2007 Update: Rick Werlin has been replaced at WCCCUSD.