Law Suit by Fischer Family Goes Forward against the Davis Joint Unified School District
As we reported over the weekend, the Fischers will file suit against the Davis Joint Unified School District this week in a dispute stemming from the perceived failure by the school district to properly deal with an harassment incident.
Last night’s Davis Enterprise contained some of the details of that suit. Among the demands included: in-home tutoring for the junior high school district, institution of a mandatory suspension for all students making homophobic comments, appoint a nondistrict neutral third party ("other than Harper Principal David Inns") to monitor and implement a zero-tolerance program toward homophobia, and finally to pay a sum of $100,000 damages for failure to follow California law.
Mr. Fischer's son has not been in school now in well over a month. He was pulled out on October 31 following incidents of harassment that resulted in the suspension of two students, detention for a number of others, and no action toward a larger number of more minor participants. The Fischers do not believe that these students received a punishment commensurate with the offense.
The key concern at this point is that the student was harassed on two different days when he returned to school.
The school has recommended several alternatives including independent study. However, the family believes that independent study would be a blemish on his academic record that could prevent him from going to law school which is his goal.
Park Consultants will be revisited by Davis City Council...
Just not last night.
As we suspected last week, Saylor's vote last week to take no action on an item that would hire a park consultant for $75,000 was a parliamentary maneuver that would have allowed him to bring up the item for reconsideration. He mentioned this at last night's city council meeting, but Mayor Sue Greenwald in a rare moment of chivalry pointed out to Saylor that if he brought this up for a vote this week, he would lose. Saylor apparently hadn't thought through the ramifications of his requesting a vote of reconsideration with Asmundson still in the Philippines. Although he did rather clumsily backtrack on the vote, suggesting that he didn’t want a vote, only a clarification on the rule. Greenwald probably would have been better served allowing him to bring it up and then killing the motion. Hopefully, Saylor will remember this act of chivalry.
Aggie Column Yesterday Misleading on Dixon Downs Suit
While I have not made up my mind on whether or not I support the city's lawsuit against Dixon, I do think that accuracy in reporting is an important quality. The aggie as we have printed in the past has made serious errors in their coverage, and they do so again yesterday in their op-ed piece excoriating the city about its lawsuit.
They write:
Whatever you can accuse the City of Davis of doing in this case, they made a large effort to work with the City of Dixon and alert them to their concerns and it was the City of Dixon who failed to respond. The City felt it had little choice but to sue at this point. As I said, I'm not necessarily in agreement with that decision to sue, but that has nothing to do with City of Davis failing to try to work with Dixon.
Students and other readers unfamiliar with this issue who read that will undoubtedly come away with the faulty conclusion that the City of Davis was negligent in its attempts to communicate, while nothing could be further from the truth.
Iraq Study Group: Bush's Policy in Iraq 'Not Working'
CNN reports: "President Bush's policy in Iraq "is not working," the Iraq Study Group said in releasing its long-awaited report."
In other news, the sky is blue and the sun is hot. Glad we figured that one out.
--Doug Paul Davis reporting
As we reported over the weekend, the Fischers will file suit against the Davis Joint Unified School District this week in a dispute stemming from the perceived failure by the school district to properly deal with an harassment incident.
Last night’s Davis Enterprise contained some of the details of that suit. Among the demands included: in-home tutoring for the junior high school district, institution of a mandatory suspension for all students making homophobic comments, appoint a nondistrict neutral third party ("other than Harper Principal David Inns") to monitor and implement a zero-tolerance program toward homophobia, and finally to pay a sum of $100,000 damages for failure to follow California law.
Mr. Fischer's son has not been in school now in well over a month. He was pulled out on October 31 following incidents of harassment that resulted in the suspension of two students, detention for a number of others, and no action toward a larger number of more minor participants. The Fischers do not believe that these students received a punishment commensurate with the offense.
The key concern at this point is that the student was harassed on two different days when he returned to school.
The school has recommended several alternatives including independent study. However, the family believes that independent study would be a blemish on his academic record that could prevent him from going to law school which is his goal.
Park Consultants will be revisited by Davis City Council...
Just not last night.
As we suspected last week, Saylor's vote last week to take no action on an item that would hire a park consultant for $75,000 was a parliamentary maneuver that would have allowed him to bring up the item for reconsideration. He mentioned this at last night's city council meeting, but Mayor Sue Greenwald in a rare moment of chivalry pointed out to Saylor that if he brought this up for a vote this week, he would lose. Saylor apparently hadn't thought through the ramifications of his requesting a vote of reconsideration with Asmundson still in the Philippines. Although he did rather clumsily backtrack on the vote, suggesting that he didn’t want a vote, only a clarification on the rule. Greenwald probably would have been better served allowing him to bring it up and then killing the motion. Hopefully, Saylor will remember this act of chivalry.
Aggie Column Yesterday Misleading on Dixon Downs Suit
While I have not made up my mind on whether or not I support the city's lawsuit against Dixon, I do think that accuracy in reporting is an important quality. The aggie as we have printed in the past has made serious errors in their coverage, and they do so again yesterday in their op-ed piece excoriating the city about its lawsuit.
They write:
"The city of Davis should work with Dixon in its efforts to mitigate the impacts of the new project rather than file legal suits that will tie up the process for an unreasonable amount of time."In fact, the City sent City Manager Bill Emlen and City Attorney Harriet Steiner to Dixon City Council Meetings in order to express their concerns. They received no response to the public statements. These appearances followed numerous attempts to contact the City of Dixon through written correspondence.
Whatever you can accuse the City of Davis of doing in this case, they made a large effort to work with the City of Dixon and alert them to their concerns and it was the City of Dixon who failed to respond. The City felt it had little choice but to sue at this point. As I said, I'm not necessarily in agreement with that decision to sue, but that has nothing to do with City of Davis failing to try to work with Dixon.
Students and other readers unfamiliar with this issue who read that will undoubtedly come away with the faulty conclusion that the City of Davis was negligent in its attempts to communicate, while nothing could be further from the truth.
Iraq Study Group: Bush's Policy in Iraq 'Not Working'
CNN reports: "President Bush's policy in Iraq "is not working," the Iraq Study Group said in releasing its long-awaited report."
In other news, the sky is blue and the sun is hot. Glad we figured that one out.
--Doug Paul Davis reporting
