What's next? This blog will continue shining the spotlight of accountability on the Lagunitas School Board

Starting today this blog will continue as a watchdog to follow, investigate, question and hold accountable the Lagunitas School Board. As I have documented during this campaign in earlier blog postings, a number of unethical actions by Mr. Sloan and Ms. Bohman have punctuated their tenure on the board. In addition, my complaints to the Fair Political Practices Commission and the Marin DA are still pending. Although the election is over, the spotlight of transparency must still be shined on the continuing slash and burn policies that are sure to be continued as the state and District face yet another round of neoliberal austeric cutbacks that will further attempt to dismantle and erode our local public school.

You can count on this blog as one source of information and analysis of school board policy. I hope you will continue to visit and stay in touch.

This election has brought the spotlight of accountability to the board

For all of those who voted and supported me in this election I would like to say Thank You! It's clear that this campaign differed from the incumbents' in several important ways. The first is that unlike the incumbents I talked about issues not "who we know". There are real fundamental problems facing this District worsened by the cut first and ask questions later polices implemented by the incumbents. I was the only one who proposed solutions.

As of 10 pm last night I finished in 3rd place with 223 votes or 16.24% of the vote. I hope that my candidacy will make it clear that there are positive alternatives to bringing equity and fairness to our local tax revenue tax base. Laying off staff and teachers and freezing their pay, packing too many children into the classroom cutting the school library, bringing multinational corporations onto our campus to entrap our children as a captive consumer market, and pushing more borrowing from Wall Street at high interest rates is no longer acceptable.

Parents and residents are watching this board very closely and holding them accountable for their policies. I hope that more residents with new fresh ideas will offer themselves to run for the open seats coming up next Fall when voter turnout is more than the 33% it was in this election. Low voter turnout combined with an off year election always favors the more conservative incumbents.

Most importantly my campaign has brought to light several troubling questions about actions of Superintendent Larry Enos and Ms. Bohman. I expect the county DA will get to the bottom of why the Administration has failed or refused to turn over all the self-promotional campaign emails Denise Bohman sent using her District email address—a violation of California law. Superintendent Larry Enos is now 12 days late turning over all the emails sent by Ms. Bohman to promote her re-election and may be in violation of the California Public Records Act. I have some emails sent by Ms. Bohman which Mr. Enos has not yet turned over to me. I await the DA weighing in on this issue.

Lobby the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and set aside Prop 13: Part 3 of My Save Our Schools—Tax the Super-rich plan

Many District residents may not be aware that the Lagunitas School District is a fee paying client of a lobbying group in Sacramento known as School for Sound Finance which advocates for the concerns of Basic Aid School Districts of which we are one. If elected I will spearhead a new coalition of school districts to advocate that Governor Brown declare a fiscal emergency and set aside Prop 13, which he has the power to do, and file a lawsuit against the Governor if he fails to do so. Since it passed in the 1970s Prop 13 has been the primary cause of our on-going revenue shortfall.

Freeing us the bondage of Prop 13 would allow our District to restore equity to our local property taxes. This would be done by adjusting property tax increases so that they rise proportionally to the value of the property, eg. the more valuable your property the higher your property tax rate. Those with less valuable properties may actually see their property taxes fall. It would also allow the District to recapture lost property taxes from those who have benefited from Prop 13 especially those who owned when it went into effect in 1978. Right now the longer you hold onto your property the lower your actual property tax rate relative to someone who bought the same value property more recently.

The Legislature lacks the political will to touch the holy grail of Prop 13 for fear of losing re-election by becoming the target of fanatical anti-tax groups such as the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform. It's up to the school board trustees of our state to take down Prop 13 or continue to see our system of public education drown in austerity, layoffs, increasing lass sizes, cutbacks, and privatization which both of my opponents advocate more of in our District.

Complaint filed with Marin County DA over Denise Bohman's use of District email for her re-election campaign

This week I filed a complaint with the Marin County District Attorney over Denise Bohman's use of District email for her re-election campaign. According to California Government Code Section 8314(a) “It is unlawful for any elected state or local officer, including any state or local appointee, employee, or consultant, to use or permit others to use public resources for a campaign activity, or personal or other purposes which are not authorized by law.” I have included the full text of my letter to the DA below.

On October 18th I filed a Public Records request with the Lagunitas School District when I came into the possession of emails Ms. Bohman sent as part of her campaign. The District turned over several emails none of which included the ones I already possess. They exceeded the 10 day limit to turn over these emails by 3 days and are still in violation of the California Public Records Act request. Has the District overlooked some of the emails they should have released to me or are they withholding these emails to help Ms. Bohman win re-election? I hope the DA can get to the bottom of this.

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November 2, 2011


Mike McBride, Esq.
Marin County
Office of the District Attorney
3501 Civic Center Drive, Room 130
San Rafael, CA 94903

Re: complaint regarding California Government Code Section 8314



Mr. McBride,

I wish to request that your office initiate an investigation of Lagunitas School Board Trustee Denise Santa Cruz Bohman’s use of public resources for her re-election campaign. According to California Government Code Section 8314(a) “It is unlawful for any elected state or local officer, including any state or local appointee, employee, or consultant, to use or permit others to use public resources for a campaign activity, or personal or other purposes which are not authorized by law.”

As you will see from the two attached emails, Ms. Bohman has been using her official District email for her re-election campaign. As a candidate for one of the two open Trustee positions I find this use of public resources to be illegal under 8314a, a violation of the public trust which she was elected to uphold, and gives her an unfair advantage in the campaign—the very kind of abuse this law was intended to ban and punish.

While I currently only possess these two emails I have a good reason to suspect that Ms. Bohman may have further used her District email address for her re-election. On October 18, 2011 I filed the attached California Public Records Act (Government Code Section 6250 et seq.), request with the Lagunitas School District. Thirteen days later I received several copies of emails sent by Ms. Bohman. However, the two emails attached to this letter were not included. As a result, I have asked the District to stop withholding these and all other emails sent by Ms. Bohman for campaign purposes and turn over all the emails they have in their possession. I have not yet received a reply.

I look forward to your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,


Robert Ovetz, Ph.D

Update: Parents sue publisher Scholastic alleging misleading billing, marketing scheme

I think it is safe to say that our school bookfair that Denise Bohman is so proud of having run is part of a corporate marketing scheme that is reported to exploit school children and their families through false advertising.

According to a statement by the law firm that has filed suit vs Scholastic found on on PR Newswire, Scholastic "uses its marketing presence within elementary schools to convince parents to purchase educational products, and then bombards parents with unsolicited goods, demanding payment in violation of state and federal law."

Apparently, these marketing ploys and bookfairs are wildly profitable since Scholastic's top executives have received huge pay raises in the past 4 years. The total compensation for top executives grew from about $2.9 m to $9.7 m even though their stock price has fallen. Between 2007-11 their CEO's total compensation has more than doubled, their CFO's compensation grew almost 6 fold, and the president of Scholastic Education has seen her compensation rise by 50%. These figures were reported to Morningstar.

Daily facilities use fee: Part 2 of My Save Our Schools—Tax the Super-rich plan

Another measure to bring about a more equitable and fair local tax base would be to pass a proportional San Geronimo Valley Community Center facilities usage fee based on the average daily number of users present on the property. The objective of this fee is to restore balance to the local tax base. Several large property owners in the Valley who literally have hundreds of thousands of combined annual users of their property are profiting from access to our facilities without paying their fair share. This fee would end what is known as the “free rider” phenomenon.

The way the facilities use fee would work is that the more daily users of these facilities you have on your property the higher the fee would be collected to support local school district and community center services. The local tax burden would be restored by placing the largest responsibility for paying the fee on those property owners who gain the most use from the facilities.

Why is this necessary? Today the Valley is home to several extremely large businesses that generate a substantial income stream from tourists and customers that live outside the Valley and yet benefit from our services without contributing to them. As free riders these local businesses unfairly place the heavy inequitable burden for supporting these services on local residents.

The way that cities and counties such as San Francisco address this free rider phenomenon is to impose a luxury or tourist tax on such services. These taxes commonly are used to fund the arts which has the effect of stimulating a vibrant arts community but also jobs and income for artists and those who work in the arts such as carpenters, sound engineers, fashion designers, and actors for example.
However, as a school district we cannot issue a tourism tax but we can issue a fee based on use of services under Article 13D of the California Constitution.

For example, the following fee would create a fairer tax revenue burden by shifting the responsibility to pay local taxes to support our schools and community center to those with the greatest number of users. This is not unusual. Property and income taxes follow the same principle by scaling the responsibility to pay taxes based on how much one’s property is worth or how much one earns in income.

The other way a use fee makes our local tax base more equitable is that like a luxury tax it places all the burden on the consumption of luxuries such as maintaining a horse, going on a retreat, eating at a restaurant, staying at a hotel, or playing a round of golf. One need merely look at the high daily and monthly fees charged for a local retreat, to board a horse, or belong to the golf club to see that consumers of these services are living at the very top of the income and wealth brackets of our society.

The following fee imposes a tax per person per day that starts at 1/100th of a cent and maxes out at $1.00 per day. For example, a household of 4 people would pay merely 4/100ths of a cent per day which comes to 4 x 37 cents = $1.48 per year. You can barely buy one organic apple for that.

This fee generates nearly all of the revenue from local facilities that host 30 or more residential customers per day. It would not apply to non-residency sales of simple goods or services. As you can see below, my rough calculation below shows it would generate a minimum of $360,000 per year.

This amount would most likely be more than enough to restore all the cuts to teachers and instructional and other staff and even give the teachers and staff a pay raise—all measures the incumbents Richard and Denise are unwilling to do. There would probably even be money left over to pay for facilities upgrades without even further indebting our District’s to Wall Street on top of what we still owe from the 1997 bond measure.

Facilities Use Fee Scale:

1-10 users: .001 cents per day
example: at 1 per day: 37 cents per year

11-20 users: .01 cents per day
example: at 11 per day: $40.15 per year

21-29 users: .1 cents per day
example: at 21 per day: $766.50

30 and more users: $1.00 per day
example: at 30 per day = $10,950 per year (Serenity Knolls maximum guests)
example: at 40 per day = $14,600 per year (rough estimate for San Geronimo Golf Course)
example: at 100 per day = $36,500 (Dickson Ranch can accommodate at least 100)
at 822 per day = $300,000 per year (Spirit Rock estimated usage according to San Geronimo Valley Planning Group)

Why did Denise Bohman vote against a grant funded environmental education project?

At a packed and tense board meeting on 10/19/10 Denise Bohman attempted to kill the Larsen Creek restoration project. The project was the brainchild of parents from both the Waldorf Inspired and Montessori programs and included a campus watershed education component. This was truly inter-program cooperation at its finest and yet Denise tried to axe it. If you have had a chance to walk across the fantastic bridge (which Richard Sloan helped build) you will see that area cleaned up, restored and cleared of several unsightly storage containers.

Yet, although this project cost the District nothing Denise vehemently denounced the sponsor organization at the meeting and was clearly working on behalf of a competing local organization at the meeting. This non-issue was n extension of an on-going clash between the watershed conservation group SPAWN and the Valley Stewards that is rampant throughout the Valley.

By attempting to can the project Denise was politicizing not only the school board but the classroom by attempting to deny the expertise of trained watershed biologists to our children, parents and teachers. SPAWN has raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Valley for about a decade restoring creeks, culverts, and roads in an effort to save the now probably extinct coho salmon.

We have been fortunate that until the past few years coho were found spawning in our very own watershed. I once saw coho jumping at the Inkwells when I used to work in the Valley. It was truly one of the wonders of my existence. It moved me to awe. Sadly, my daughter has yet to see them even after years of taking her in winter rain storms to find them. We have an extinction crisis happening right before our eyes and it's a tragedy.

Voting to allow the Larsen Creek project to go forward Richard put it succinctly that the District would not be initiating a relationship with SPAWN since it has long had one. That included, he pointed out, its sponsorship of the rain catchment structure at the upper campus, an amazing system that yet again Richard helped build.

I write about this because it raises a number of crucial questions about the incumbents' endorsement of one another for re-election.

1. If Denise really represents all the programs and the principle of parent choice as she repeatedly claims why did she try so hard to kill the Larsen Creek project?

2. Does Denise have an ideological opposition to environmental education and watershed conservation? If so, what is it? What does she think about the crisis facing our ecosystems?

3. If Denise really works to raise funds for the entire District and all its programs why did she vote against this grant funded program? Does she favor certain fundraising over others? The Larsen Creek project saved the District invaluable thousands of dollars on facilities and grounds maintenance that was freed up to be used to educate the children. That's much more effective than funding it by further indebting the District to Wall Street by borrowing at a 100% interest rate over 20-30 years.

4. Lastly, how can Richard and Denise, who stand on opposite sides on issues revolving around environmental education endorse one another? This is not just about SPAWN and the Stewards but a reflection of how they manage the District. They each represent interests which have bitterly factionalized our schools. Do we really want this to continue another 4 years? Could their mutual endorsement be an expression of just how willing they are to compromise their own principles just to stay in office? What else have they and will they continue to compromise on?

Of course, this also begs the question as to why Richard in early 2009 unsuccessfully attempted to cut SPAWN's parent organization's parcel tax by 80%.

These are crucial questions I hope voters will ask before casting their votes for either of the incumbents. A vote that is given away is a wasted vote.