Four CUSD Trustees Served With Recall Notices This Afternoon

Four Capistrano unified School District Trustees  -- Sheila Benecke, Marlene Draper, Duane Stiff and Mike Darnold -- are being served recall notices this afternoon. My understanding is the recall notices were to be served today at the CUSD Board of Trustees closed session, where they'll be discussing a pay raise for acting interim Superintendent Suzette Lovely.

The Notice of Intention sets for the grounds for the recall (while this one mentions Trustee Sheila Benecke, this preamble is identical to that in the other the notices of intention to recall:

NOTICE OF INTENTION TO CIRCULATE RECALL PETITION

TO THE HONORABLE SHEILA J. BENECKE:  Pursuant to Section 11020, California Elections Code, the undersigned registered qualified voters of the Capistrano Unified School District in the State of California, hereby give notice that we are the proponents of a recall petition and that we intend to seek your recall and removal from the office of Trustee, in the Capistrano Unified School District, in the State of California, and to demand election of a successor in that office.   The grounds for the recall are as follows:

You have permitted a culture of corruption to infect our school district.

You permitted district personnel to use scarce district resources to create unlawful lists of your political “enemies” -- including children.  You engaged in illegal closed session meetings where district business was conducted in secret.  You and your staff repeatedly provided false information to the public regarding district finances.  You failed to effectively control your staff – even giving your former superintendent (now indicted for multiple felonies) a standing ovation and lucrative retirement package just hours after police investigators armed with search warrants raided his office.

You grossly mismanaged district finances.

You are recklessly spending $52,000,000 on an administration building and over $140,000,000 for a single high school next to a dump -- while our schools are in dire need of repairs and students are crammed into substandard portable classrooms with non-functioning restrooms.  Your reckless deficit spending has created a self-inflicted, multi-million dollar budget crisis that has put our children at risk and resulted in massive program cutbacks – overcrowding classrooms and severely diminishing the quality of education. 
You have arrogantly disregarded the public by repeatedly ignoring problems until they become crises.

You have broken the public’s trust.  www.cusdrecall.com   

Draper and Benecke have been CUSD Trustees since the dawn of time...or more accurately, since 1988 and 1992, respectively. The other two targeted trustees, Duane Stiff and Mike Darnold, were both appointed in 2000 and elected in their own right in 2004. There was a lot of that going on the CUSD Board of Trustees in the Fleming Era: Instead of not running for re-election, trustees would retire by resigning so the Fleming Majority could appoint a compliant replacement who could subsequently stand for election as an incumbent.

Comments

[Tim Steed]

Jubal-

What about the Scooter Libby story? Waiting on the talking points before you can move forward?

Culture of Corruption continues.... Is it November 08 yet?

[Jubal]

Waiting on the talking points before you can move forward?

No, Tim. But you seemed to have your slogans committed to memory already.

On the other hand, I'm able to think for myself.

I've been out all afternoon and I judged the CUSD recall a more important OC story for an OC blog.

[View From the Top]

Hallelujah!!!

As these four trustees have given all elected officials a black eye in Orange County, I hope more Orange County officials stand behind these brave parents that have taken on a political behemoth that is corrupt to the core.

[Speech transcript from today’s CUSD board meeting]

Monday, July 2, 2007
Special Meeting of the CUSD Board of Trustees

SPEECH BY TOM RUSSELL, SPOKESPERSON, CUSD RECALL COMMITTEE AND COMMITTEE TO REFORM CUSD

My name is Tom Russell. As you know, I have one child attending school in CUSD.

My child is on the CUSD enemies list. So is my wife…and so am I.

Today, you are scheduled to meet in closed session where you are scheduled to consider who will be the next interim superintendent – the third since recently indicted former Superintendent James Fleming left in disgrace.

Sadly, the continued presence of the Four Fleming-era trustees on this board makes it virtually impossible for this school district to attract and retain a qualified superintendent…someone who will come here and immediately begin to clean up the utter chaos the four Fleming Trustees have created.

Sadly, this school district will not begin to heal and move forward until the four Fleming-era trustees are removed from office.

Sheila Benecke, Marlene Draper, Duane Stiff and Mike Darnold – you have ignored the ever-growing chorus of elected officials and voters calling for your immediate resignations.

As a result, you now leave the voters with no choice but to remove you from office…NOW.

Therefore, the grounds for recall are as follows:

You have permitted a culture of corruption to infect our school district.

You permitted district personnel to use scarce district resources to create unlawful lists of your political “enemies” -- including children.

You engaged in illegal closed session meetings where district business was conducted in secret.

You and your staff repeatedly provided false information to the public regarding district finances.

You failed to effectively control your staff – even giving your former superintendent (now indicted for multiple felonies) a standing ovation and a lucrative retirement package just hours after police investigators armed with search warrants raided his office.

You grossly mismanaged district finances.

You are recklessly spending $52,000,000 on an administration building and over $140,000,000 for a single high school next to a dump -- while our schools are in dire need of repairs and students are crammed into substandard portable classrooms.

Your reckless deficit spending has created a self-inflicted, multi-million dollar budget crisis that has put our children at risk and resulted in massive program cutbacks – overcrowding classrooms and severely diminishing the quality of education.

You have arrogantly disregarded the public by repeatedly ignoring problems until they become crises.

You have broken the public’s trust.

For these reasons, we now serve upon you official recall papers.

Please, for the sake of the children and taxpayers of this school district, spare everyone the months of chaos, division and delay that a recall campaign necessarily brings.

Please -- do the right thing – put the kids first and resign immediately.

[Speech transcript from today’s CUSD board meeting]

Monday, July 2, 2007
Special Meeting of the CUSD Board of Trustees

SPEECH BY TOM RUSSELL, SPOKESPERSON, CUSD RECALL COMMITTEE AND COMMITTEE TO REFORM CUSD

My name is Tom Russell. As you know, I have one child attending school in CUSD.

My child is on the CUSD enemies list. So is my wife…and so am I.

Today, you are scheduled to meet in closed session where you are scheduled to consider who will be the next interim superintendent – the third since recently indicted former Superintendent James Fleming left in disgrace.

Sadly, the continued presence of the Four Fleming-era trustees on this board makes it virtually impossible for this school district to attract and retain a qualified superintendent…someone who will come here and immediately begin to clean up the utter chaos the four Fleming Trustees have created.

Sadly, this school district will not begin to heal and move forward until the four Fleming-era trustees are removed from office.

Sheila Benecke, Marlene Draper, Duane Stiff and Mike Darnold – you have ignored the ever-growing chorus of elected officials and voters calling for your immediate resignations.

As a result, you now leave the voters with no choice but to remove you from office…NOW.

Therefore, the grounds for recall are as follows:

You have permitted a culture of corruption to infect our school district.

You permitted district personnel to use scarce district resources to create unlawful lists of your political “enemies” -- including children.

You engaged in illegal closed session meetings where district business was conducted in secret.

You and your staff repeatedly provided false information to the public regarding district finances.

You failed to effectively control your staff – even giving your former superintendent (now indicted for multiple felonies) a standing ovation and a lucrative retirement package just hours after police investigators armed with search warrants raided his office.

You grossly mismanaged district finances.

You are recklessly spending $52,000,000 on an administration building and over $140,000,000 for a single high school next to a dump -- while our schools are in dire need of repairs and students are crammed into substandard portable classrooms.

Your reckless deficit spending has created a self-inflicted, multi-million dollar budget crisis that has put our children at risk and resulted in massive program cutbacks – overcrowding classrooms and severely diminishing the quality of education.

You have arrogantly disregarded the public by repeatedly ignoring problems until they become crises.

You have broken the public’s trust.

For these reasons, we now serve upon you official recall papers.

Please, for the sake of the children and taxpayers of this school district, spare everyone the months of chaos, division and delay that a recall campaign necessarily brings.

Please -- do the right thing – put the kids first and resign immediately.

[Dan Chmielewski]

Back to Tim's comment on Scooter Libby. Nice dodge on th ebiggets news story on the day affect center-right politics everywhere. Not a story here because its a County Blog. Then what is the SacBee story on the two non-OC members of the Assembly, who happen to be Democrats, doing here? Simple, If a story makes Democrats or Liberals look bad, it's here. Scooter Libby story; the President proving he didn't restore honor and integrity to the White House; not a story.

[OCR Observer]

Huge story here. The biggest in South Orange County in years. Good luck to those trying to reform this dysfunctional agency!

Dear Mr Tom Russel;
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you have fallen victim of a classic GOP tactic of "starving the beast" and destroying all public confidence in our local institutions. This is done so that those who put forth school vouchers as the panacea of the CSUD and in fact the privatization of all government functions as the silver bullet to all your porblems.

Do you remember Enron and the privatization of our electrical grid and power supply perpetrated by Pete Wilson?

"The difference between California and the Titanic is that when the Titanic went down, the lights were still on."
Jeffery Skilling CEO Enron.

[Jubal]

Dan:

Get a grip, Dan. And don't lecture me. No dodge. Like I told Steed, I was out all afternoon.

If I want to post the occasional non-OC story, I will. You lefties get your indignant feathers ruffled when everyone else doesn't get outraged about what outrages you guys.

If you and the rest of the local Left want to wag your fingers, furrow your brows and moralize, do it somewhere else. Too bad Libby didn't lie under oath about having sex with someone who wasn't his wife. That seems to be OK with all you Dems pining away for the good old days of Clinton.

I didn't follow this case very closely, but in my book, you Dems have no credibility on issues like this after years of rationalizing and excusing the Clintons and their cronies.

And Dan --I haven't seen any coverage on your blog about investigations of Don Perata or William Jefferson. Not that you would only post stories that only reflect badly on GOPers. Or am I missing something?

[Achems Razor]

The CUSD Recall Committee has been focused on one simple goal throughout the CUSD Recall campaign (2005), the ABC Reform campaign (2006) and now the CUSD Recall II Campaign (2007), i.e., to restore honesty, integrity and accountability into CUSD.

Some have tried to attribute hidden, special interest agendas to the group but they have failed due to the group’s simple, non-partisan platform that has attracted widespread support from people from all parts of the political spectrum. In fact, the leaders of the group have been, and remain some of the greatest supporters of the district. That’s why Steven Greenhut, who met with the leaders of the group, and who asked them questions about vouchers and other controversial issues, could find no such special interest agenda. What he did find was a diverse group of parents and taxpayers with no common political agendas who just wanted to remove a patently corrupt school administration that only gives lip service to putting the interests of children first while misspending their tax dollars.

Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one.

[Karl Rove]

Did Sheila Benecke ask the "jackasses" to "slither" away after they served the papers?

[Dan Steed]

Liberals like Dan and Tim have same capacity for individual thought as a bee. They buzz around the hive and go about their pre-programmed ideological lives. When something bumps the hive, they swarm out instinctively and start stinging.

[Paul Lucas]

"Too bad Libby didn't lie under oath about having sex with someone who wasn't his wife. That seems to be OK with all you Dems pining away for the good old days of Clinton."

Matt are you honestly comparing the outing of an undercover NOC CIA Agent as an act of retaliation against a man who could not verify the purchase of yellow cake uranium by Iraqi agents to the Monica Lewinski issue?

Tell me it’s not so Matt. For Gods sake you GOP'ers nearly had Bill Clinton Impeached over oral sex and you compare that to outing a deep cover CIA Agent, blowing her cover destroying years of deep cover investigations and work?

Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, et al, are guilty of treason or obstruction after the fact and you are not outraged? In fact you bring up that old Monica Lewinski issue?

Say it isn’t so Matt! Say you don’t think oral sex is even in the same ball park as TREASON. Treason Matt TREASON.

Say it isn’t so that you think TREASON is ok just to justify going to war and end up MURDERING, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi women and children.
Say it isn’t so Matt that you are ok with lying about yellow cake uranium and killing thousands of our troops just to push an ultra conservative agenda.

Say it isn’t so Matt that you think MURDER, TREASON, and LYING under oath are just as bad as oral sex with someone other than your wife.

Say it isn’t so.

[Dan Chmielewski]

Matt --
We have reported that William Jefferson was one of the 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (a list that had only three Dems); happy to post somehting on Perata.

I just can't believe you haven't followed this story that closely.

As for Clinton, make no mistake that I, like many liberals,did not approve of his extramartial affairs. But what Bill did was a divorcable offense, and not an impeachable one.

That was a statute in place barring sitting president's from civil suits. The right wing pulled some judicial strings and Clinton has compelled to testify in the Paula Jones case. In deposition, you have ot answer any quesiton even if not related to the case at hand which is how Monica Lewinsky popped up. Hence, the lying under oath (though with Republicans it seems that lying while not under oath is perfectly OK); but Scooter Libby did lie under oath about the outing of a covert operative involved in investigating Iran's nuclear program during a time a war.

Hate to go bumper sticker on you, but if you're not outraged by this, you're not paying attention and you should be. Even Nixon wasn't this bad.

[Jubal]

No, I'm not. Besides, Valerie Plame was not an covert operative, and it's refreshing to see lefties so concerned with the the effectiveness of covert CIA operations.

And you might recall that Libby didn't out Plame -- Richard Armitage did.

I'm pointing out how libs don't seem to mind that President Clinton lied under oath. It was "only about sex" remember?

You guys have the pitchforks out to put a senior Republican administration staffer in prison for 30 months because he lied to a grand jury, but you idolize a President who coolly lied to the American people and under oath. It's hard to take your outrage seriously.

And what treason are you talking about? Instead of repeating the accusation, you might try backing it up.

By the way, Here's one of your fellow libs, WaPo columnist Richard Cohen, on why Libby should be pardoned.

BTW, I'm sure the "America has murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children" claim is going to go over real well with Garden Grove voters during your council campaign.

[Jubal]

I just can't believe you haven't followed this story that closely.

Why? Since starting this blog, I just don't follow national politics -- or even state politics -- as closely as I used to. It's called lack of time. I work at running this blog and starting other RC blogs. I have several other clients to service. I have a wife and four kids. Sorry if I don't keep up to speed on stories the Left cares deeply about and blog exhaustively about things that matter to the Left.

[Jubal]

Oh -- so it only matters if a President lies under oath if he was put under oath in a manner the Left approves of.

And I didn't raise the question of whether or not you lefties approved of Clinton's infidelity. Please find point out where "fooling around on spouse" was in the Article of Impeachment?

You guys are still making excuses for the guy and believing your own spin about him after all these years.

[Karl Rove]

What does recalling four CUSD trustees have to do with my buddy Scooter?

[Jubal]

Nothing -- but as an earlier commenter alluded, the Hive has been disturbed and can't turn it's collective consciousness to anything else.

[Karl Rove]

Its a good thing there aren't killer bees in that hive.....

[Jubal]

For the benefit of Paul and Dan, some excerpts from Byron York's NRO column on the Libby commutation:

In Iowa last night, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose husband left office amid a pardon scandal, said President Bush had “elevat[ed] cronyism over the rule of law.”

I don't think pot calling the kettle black even comes close to describing that one.

One of the men pardoned by the first President Bush in 1992 was Clair George, the former chief of the CIA’s clandestine operations who was found guilty of two counts of lying to Congress. In recent months, George has been watching the Libby case and wondering what was going on. “I think he should be pardoned,” George told National Review in early June. “I don’t quite know what it was that he lied about. But I’m not quite sure in my own trial what I lied about.”

Like Libby’s defenders, George believes his Iran-contra prosecution was politically motivated. And George was grateful not only for the first President Bush’s pardon but for his statement of support. So now, don’t look for George to join the outraged voices protesting the Libby commutation. “I’m a registered Democrat, an opponent of the war, and I’m not a happy camper under this administration,” George says. “But this is ridiculous.”

[Oh, Oh, Oh]

The buzz inside CUSD headquarters today is that at least two of the Trustees are cracking up. Duane Stiff was so upset that Draper and Fleming had brought so much embarrassment to him and the district to prompt indictments and another recall he actually stormed out and refused to participate in the entire school board meeting.

[At least two?]

Who's the second trustee?

[Oh, Oh, Oh...It's CUSD's Draper]

Marlene Draper. Word is that she had a difficult time maintaining her composure yesterday and expressed deep-seated reservations to many individuals about whether continuing to sit on the board in the face of such public scrutiny was really worth it.

[Paul Lucas]

Matt,
Let me close this string with a few comments;
First, I'm glad to see CSUD parents finally stepping up to recall some of the worst administrators in recent history. And with the registration gap, I'm even happier to see that its Republicans eating their own.

Second, the killing of innocent's in any war, due to coalition backed trigger happy Iraqi forces (of which some moonlight as insurgents using weapons we supplied them to attack US Soldiers and innocents, is atrocious.

Blackwater, as well is guilty of killing innocents without any oversight from those prosecuting this war.

And, yeah since this war was perpetuated on false intelligence which the Bush administration knew was false information, anyone who died in this war is a victim of wrongful death in my opinion.

I'm not afraid of sharing my views on this war in Garden Grove or anywhere. In no way do I ever divert from my view on this quagmire which got alot of angry responses while I was precinct walking. But you know what? Some of those voters that cussed me out for not backing the President now apologize to me when I meet them at the farmers market, strawberry festival, car show, Elks Lodge etc.

Richard Armitage should be put on trial for treason. And scooter libby lied about it to protect armitage and the vice president. In my opinion that’s aiding and abetting TREASON.