John Casabianca's Deceptive Endorsements

CUSD Trustee John Casabianca is running for re-election. Being one of seven trustees who lashed themselves blindfolded to the mast of the Capo Unified ship of state while Commodore Fleming steered it onto the reef, his decision to seek re-election anyway calls his judgment into question.

But his list of endorsements on his SmartVoter candidate page calls into question his concern for minimum accuracy.

For example, Casabianca claims to be endorsed by:

• John Campbell, Assembly Member
• Patricia Bates, Assembly Member

Except John Campbell is now a Congressman (following a stint in the state Senate) and Pat Bates has been out of the Assembly since 2004.

There was obviously something hinky about this endorsement list, so I checked out the endorsement list from Casabianca's 2002 SmartVoter page. It's identical to his 2006 endorsement list.

Mind you, all information to the SmartVoter profiles is provided by the candidates. Now, even if Casabianca is just too lazy to solicit new endorsements, he's still knowingly deceiving voters by presenting a four year old endorsement list as current.

Comments

This is really bad form on the part of CUSD Trustee Casabianca. I'd expect he will be hearing from a number of infuriated elected officials whose names he wrongfully published. It hurts their reputations to be associated in any way with CUSD. Under the circumstances, it would be political suicide to associate yourself with Casabianca or any CUSD Trustee.

[Theodore]

Casabianca obviously is providing false information and claiming endorsements he doesn't truly have. Looks like he is simply trying to deceive the public. He should be ashamed of himself.

[SOC Watchdog]

Pretty much par for the course for this bunch.

[CUSD Observer]

If these elected officials have, in fact, endorsed CUSD's John Casabianca for another term after all the misdeeds that have been publicly aired about CUSD with virtually no response given or accountability taken by the CUSD Trustees, then I for one will never vote for any of these elected officials again that have endorsed John Casabianca.

If, on the other hand, Trustee Casabianca is found to be misleading the voting public with regard to his supporters, then he needs to be severally and publicly reprimanded for his deceptive actions and he owes everyone of these elected officials a formal apology.

This is further evidence that this man is not fit to be in office.

[Constituent]

This is outrageous. Casabianca is misleading the people he is supposed to be serving.

I know for a fact that Pat Bates has not endorsed him or any of the CUSD Trustees. In fact, Pat Bates was so offended by the corruption at CUSD that she deleted the endorsements of the CUSD Trustees from her own website list of endorsements.

[Wally]

I certainly hope elected officials, like Pat Bates, publicly denounce Casabianca's actions and demand their name be taken off his endorsement list.

If they don't, I think there are going to be far reaching consequences to many elections in November, other than CUSD.

[OCNative]

Not only Campbell and Bates, but:

*Mimi Walters, Laguna Niguel City Council
Assembly Member since 2004.

*Susan Withow, Mayor Mission Viejo
No longer on the Council.

*Joe Snyder, Mayor Dana Point
No longer on the Council.

*Joe Brown, Mayor Laguna Niguel
Cassie DeYoung's the Mayor now.

*Jim Dahl, Mayor San Clemente
Wayne Eggleston's the Mayor now.

*Diane Bathgate, Mayor San Juan Capistrano
Dave Swerdlin's the Mayor now.

*Mike Whipple, Mayor Pro Tem Laguna Niguel
Gary Capata's the Mayor Pro Tem now.

*Shelia Henness, President CUSD Board
Marlene Draper's the President now.

*Dr. Duane Stiff, Clerk CUSD Board
Casabianca himself is the Clerk now!

My personal favorite:
*Dick Ackerman, United States Senator
Just dead wrong (although US Senator Ackerman would be far better than Boxer or Feinstein).

[John has no shame]

So good ole John betrays the public trust again. What is this about the million time. I am not suprised at all to see him post his 2002 list and bet he could not count on one hand any current endorsements. What a fraud !!!

[Earth to John]

Well, I think Mr. Casabianca must live in a parallel universe that only he can comprehend.

Aside from his mind boggling decisions of late: (1) To pay for the criminal defense of Fleming; (2) To pay for attorneys for CUSD employees appearing before the grand jury; (3) The hiring of a less than "independent" investigator with Rutan & Tucker (CUSD's long standing law firm) ties to lead the investigation against CUSD, when the DA is already doing this; (4) To approve an over arching CUSD-wide EIR intended to maximize the number of trailers on every campus, when they already have more than 50% of their classrooms as portable; and (5) to lead a standing ovation for Fleming at his second to last board meeting, rather than firing him for cause; it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Casabianca figures endorsements are for life.

It makes one wonder what else Mr. Casabianca has misrepresented to the public.

[Hey John, you're not in Kansas anymore.]

You'd think a D.A. investigation and raid of the new CUSD administration building, numerous scandals involving CUSD (including allegations of Brown Act violations by Casabianca and the other trustees), an independent investigation of CUSD that could impicate Casabianca, and a recommendation against Casabianca's endorsement by the Republican Central Committee's Nomination Committee would have made serious impressions on Casabianca -- at least enough for him to have exercised a some caution in representing his endorsements. He had to have known that these embarrassing scandals would cause many local politicians to have serious concerns.

I guess Casabiance, like the other CUSD trustees, isn't accustomed to so much real scrutiny. He just was not prepared to deal with a strange new setting where his familiar and notorious CUSD-style of business-as-usual doesn't work -- reality.

[Ward C.]

I have to agree with CUSD Observer. Each and every official on Casabianca's "endorsement" list needs to publicly denounce Casabianca and the rest of the CUSD Trustees for there shameless handling of the Fleming mess.

Further, each public offical should demand a public apology from Casabianca.

[Blog Junkie]

SmartVoter has been made aware of this issue and if you go through the front door, there is no longer a 2006 endorsement link associated with him. SmartVoter has been very responsive to this and I think that they should be commended for taking such quick action.

[Ear to the Ground]

Blog Junkie: That's not good enough. If you click on what Casabianca posted as his full list of endorsements, it's still there showing all his bogus endorsements. Casabianca will be telling the public to click on that link to see who has endorsed him. Problem is, its all a fraud. Casabianca should delete the entire page immediately and issue a formal apology.

[SOC Watchdog]

The League of Women Voters runs the Smart Voter web site. Although there is a disclaimer on the page that says the information is provided by the candidate, they still have a responsibility to not allow fraudulent information to be posted. They should remove the endorsement page and issue the formal apology.

[Blog Junkie]

But you can't click on it anymore, that was the point of my post. It's a start and shows great initiative on the part of SmartVoter to get this done quickly.

Most people that are going to smartvoter will go in from the front door and won't realize that there was ever an endorsement page linked to Mr. Casabianca.

But I agree that the endorsement page should also deleted, but I see this is a good start.

Casabianca...not worthy to serve another day EVER! As a public official he is held to honesty and integrity. He is far from representing the truth. He KNOWINGLY posted false endorsements thus lying to the public. FRAUD! Falsifying info and pretending to be something he is not is BUSINESS AS USUAL for this guy.
I am asking for all people falsely represneted to speak out..NOW!

I urge the league of women's voters to make a public anouncement on their site condemning casabianca's "fraudulent" behavior. The public deserves to know the truth regarding John's intent to deceive all voters.

[Ear to the Ground]

Blog Junkie: I just clicked on the link at it still takes me to his bogus list of endorsements. (Only the link to his master website is now down...but anyone can still get to his bogus list of endorsements by clicking on the link that was posted yesterday). There's nothing to stop Casabianca from still directing members of the public to this fraudulent page of endorsements -- that's the problem and it has not been fixed.

That is correct. The League of Women Voters has not fixed the problem satisfactorily. That endorsement list can still be accessed.

They need to remove it and put out an explanation or their own credibility as an organization can be called into question.

[Theodore]

Why doesn't Casabianca go in and delete the page himself? He created it and he can delete it immediately...if he really wanted to. It's pathetic that he is making the League of Women Voters clean up his mess (not to mention that his bad acts may be damaging the reputation of their organization).

Because he is corrupt. That is why he doesn't fix it himself.

Hey I heard that CUSD has put up a candidate in RSM to try and oust one of the city council members up for re-election because they have been vocal in their condemnation of the corruption there.

Anybody know anything about this?

[ski truth teller]

Yes they have and how clever CUSD thinks they are. Cutkomp is only a transparent parrot for the district. As a teacher at one of the most controversial schools,Arroyo Vista, he is the district's choice to control city issues.....The record shows that cutkomp had never attended a city council meeting until just recently. Choice Cutkomp supporters also happen to be intimidating, corrupt fools..some of which have harrassed crossing guards, teschers and public officials!!!!

[Yeeha]

you guys are boneheads

if you read the top of the web page where you saw all these endorsements, you would clearly see that it says: "NOVEMBER 2002 ELECTION". it even shows his opponent as Larry Tate

this is a 4 year old web page that never got taken down

classic b.s. spin from the recall team

Yeeha,

You better look again. It clearly says November 7, 2006 for his 2006 endorsement list.

[Wrong Way Mike]

Yeeha,
Through that impaired vision of yours I'm sure you clicked on the 2002 SmartVoter page instead of the 2006 Endorsement List.
It's truly amazing that with all the scrutiny these trustees are under that Casabianca would pull something like this. It's another example of why he and Henness are not fit for office.
The Republican Party gets it, the voting public get it, but you're paid NOT to get it. Keep up the good work, with your sage advise you're making the recall folks job a heck of a lot easier to show people why it's time for a change at CUSD.