Lawsuit Filed Against OUSD Censure Of Steve Rocco

The Greater Orange News eBlog reports that a lawsuit has been filed against the Orange Unified School District for its censure of Trustee Steve Rocco:

Arguing that the Orange Unified School Board Censure of Trustee Steve Rocco violated the First Amendment Free Speech protections, the Brown Act and the California Constitution, Californians Aware President Richard McKee filed a lawsuit against the October 12th Orange Unified School Board Resolution of Censure against Rocco. The 27 page petition demands the OUSD Board rescind the Resolution of Censure and take steps to insure that free speech is not violated at the OUSD meetings in the future.

McKee had appeared before the OUSD Board arguing against the wording of the resolution and warning of legal consequences if the resolution was approved as written. The Censure Resolution was prepares by the OUSD legal team represented by Parker and Covert law firm. McKee has tangled with the law team before winning against them in similar Brown Act cases involving OUSD and other Southern California school districts.

The Rocco Censure Affair was the focus of two months of intense local media and school district focus. The whole affair began with OUSD Superintendent Thomas Godley censoring a video broadcast of the OUSD School Board Meeting to the community to “protect” the “privacy rights” of former Villa Park Principal Ben Rich. Rocco stated that instead of transferring Rich to another school, Rocco would have voted to fire Rich.

 

GONE concludes trenchantly:

The months long censorship, Censure process, and now lawsuit has focused more attention on Rocco, Rich and OUSD than the thirty seconds of Rocco’s comments about Rich ever would have produced.

Exactly. The ham-handed OUSD Trustees -- blithely re-elected by my fellow Orange citizens -- demonstrate once again costs of their thoughtlessness and impetuosity.

Comments

[Northcountystorm]

Just what we need--another lawsuit by someone craving attention. The Board censured Rocco, they did not prevent him from ranting on and on. He made it clear they were not chilling his speech and he intended on continuing to speak out and confirm to the 30% of the District that does not know who he is that he is on another planet. I would not have censured him had I been on the Board because a)it just gave him some ink and as the Orange group noted, magnified the degree of disclosure of Rocco's comments and b)there were some factual problems(Board President had mentioned someone too) that should have led the Board to just engage in a little ass-chewing. I agreed with McGee's hammering of the Board in the past for Brown Act violations but a lawsuit here is as much an overreaction as was the original censure.

On the elections, I disagree that the residents of the District acted blithely in re-electing the incumbents. Do you think they acted blithely in re-electing Ledesma whom i believe you voted for? My take is that most of the electorate was generally satisfied with the District and with the exception of Bittel, most of the people who lost were not ready for prime time. Like many Boards they tend to rubber stamp the Sup. too often but overall people felt they had done an acceptable job.

[Jubal]

It takes a lot for OUSD voters to defeat an incumbent. The current board majority likes to paint their predecessors as latter-day Torquemadas presiding over a Dark Age of educational decay -- yet Orange citizens continually re-elected them prior to their ultimate recall, despite the constant fuliminations of the teachers union and board critics.

I'll admit that "blithely" is a something of an overstatement. My feeling is my fellow Orange residents are accustomed or resigned to being in a mediocre school district. Since things don't seem too bad, they'll re-elect the incumbents because, as you pointed out, they weren't presented with great alternatives -- and the incumbents had comparatively strong mail programs (plus IEs from the teachers union).

Fortunately, that meant a good trustee like Rick Ledesma was "blithely" re-elected along with his rubber-stamp colleagues.

My name is Daniel .S. Martinez. Im the son of phil Martinez, and i cant belive that this OUSD let this A HOLE in office. I am proud to be independent party in politics. Oh ya whats the deal with the voters?? WHAT ALL THEY ALL democrats??? man people join the INDEPENDENT PARTY like Lue Dobbs.