Watch Dog has been following the latest drama that looks an awful lot like bickering children in a first grade class. Add to the ongoing turmoil, money desperately needed for education is given to lawyers and departing district staff, well over a million dollars in the past 7 years. Here are some background items that may be helpful as you hear about the latest controversies...
- Recently (re)elected Trustee Esau Herrera, is back after a stormy relationship with the district and fellow Trustees in the 1990’s when he accused a colleague of trying to run him over.
- Before the most recent Superintendent bilked the District, the two previous Superintendents started the trend...fired Superintendent Joe Carrillo took home $225,000 in 2001 and Alfonso Anaya received at least nine months pay to when he was asked to leave in 2004. Pretty good for a chronically cash-strapped District.
- New Trustee Dolores Marquez, a former Alum Rock employee, has a legal order which prevents her from going on school grounds during work hours. Now, she is fighting a District lawsuit to prevent her from keeping her seat. But don't worry about Marquez...when the opportunity presented itself last week to vote on firing the District legal team pursuing the lawsuit against her, Marquez did not recuse herself saying, “I do have the right to sit here.” An interesting opening move by Marquez...
- Over the course of the last school year the District paid over $500,000 in legal fees, by comparison, the Evergreen School District with the same number of students, spent $193,400.
- Recently paid-off Superintendent Norma Martinez has had a rocky relationship with PACT (People Acting in Community Together) over the “small schools” since she started in 2006. PACT wants the schools to continue. Martinez – wasn’t their biggest fan and clashed with the non-profit and small-school supporters. But the struggle over the small schools started before Martinez became Superintendent. In spite of their success, the funding for the schools was a source of contention. The small schools wanted autonomy over their budgets and the District wanted control -- presumably to pay for more lawyers and for Superintendents' golden parachutes...
- Alum Rock’s bevy of high priced legal eagles recommended giving Superintendent Martinez a farewell gift of $300,000 and insurance benefits of over $500,000. Sounding like King Henry VI (Shakespeare), Herrera (a lawyer) declared first "Let's discharge all lawyers..." Trustee Gustavo Gonzalez wants to start fresh while Trustee Patricia Potter wants to keep the current team in place.
We’ll keep watching, and hope you do as well, if you sniff out interesting news send it to Watch Dog.
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