District Transparency and the Measure Q Oversight Committee

One of the big concerns that has arisen from the public with the issue of Measure W and the extension of the parcel tax to cover an additional $120 per parcel is that of accountability. In order to address that issue, the school board has incorporated into the proposal the creation of an oversight body appointed by school board members.

This has drawn some criticism as well, suggesting that these are just self-selected individuals by the board.

For that reason, I spoke at length to a member of the Measure Q Oversight Board, former school board candidate Bob Schelen. From his description of the process, there is really no reason to believe either that this board is a bunch of "yes" people to the district. Moreover, and as important, the process that Mr. Schelen describes is so open, that members of the public can come to these meetings and participate. If they have questions, they have opportunities to ask them of staff. In other words, any individual who truly is interested in oversight has no legitimate reason to complain about this process--they have every opportunity themselves to be their own watchdog of the district and how it spends money.

The Measure Q oversight board has now had three public meetings. The first meeting was an introductory meeting, followed by a meeting where the board went over material from Bruce Colby, the district Chief Budget Officer and his assistant.

The third meeting went over the calendar and discussed the report that would go to the school board in January.

"We're still working on looking at all the information provided us. I must say that the information provided has been completely transparent and Bruce Colby has been excellent in providing us the information that we need. All of us who are on the committee are extremely happy with the information that we have been provided and the transparency of the process."

Mr. Schelen went on to describe some of the process:

"They're showing us the budget. There are two or three different ways that they are doing it. One is there is a very detailed process of where all of the Measure Q money is going. For instance, in terms of what the Measure had said and where the money was going, there is a document showing which programs that the parcel tax provided for and how much of a percentage was. Because some of the money is percentage-wise of going to for instance the avid program or the counseling program end up at each different school.

So the way that they've done it is that they provide us by the percentage that the parcel tax pays for, both in terms of program personnel and schools. They've also provided us information in terms of the entire budget and how much a percentage of Measure Q is part of the entire budget. And they've developed one document that has all kinds of particular information. We have been looking at that as well as a document with more general process with the information. So where the money goes. The way that they have done it is provide it through the programs, personnel, and schools.

The first thing they have done, there have been a number of questions throughout our three meetings especially when we looked at the one document with all of the particular numbers, and there were a number of questions, and Bruce Colby and his assistant answered the question there but they also offered to allow members of the committee to meet with them individually and go through the book as well. Every question has been answered, there has not been one thing that has been asked that they've said we'll get back to you or that isn't an appropriate question for this group to ask--even if they've asked questions that might go beyond the budgeting of just the parcel tax, but the budgeting of the entire school district."

One of the major criticisms that has arose at least on this blog is the complaint that this is simply a handpicked group. Bob Schelen agrees that it is a handpicked group, but also believes that the group is fairly diverse and not a group of "yes" people or sycophants to the board.

"The people that have been picked have been people representative of the community. And not the only the school community but the entire community. I don't believe any of them are sycophants of the particular board members who picked them."

He points out his differences of opinion with some of the board members.

"I ran for school board against Richard [Harris] and Susan [Lovenburg] and am a part of the process. So I wouldn't necessarily say that I agree with everything that they think. As you know, I was a Valley Oak supporter, and neither one of them were."

Also on the board is former board member BJ Kline, who at times was a strong critic of the district's financing practices.

"Other people on the committee include BJ Kline, former school board member who had been somewhat critical of the way that school financing had been done in the past."

He believes this to be a strong and knowledgeable group of people.

"So I think that the people who are on the committee are people who will not be yes people to the school district. They're people who know school financing to the extent possible in California. And are people who are asking pertinent and sharp questions and answers are being provided."

One of the strengths of a diverse group is that even one dissenting individual can lead to a thorough questioning of particular concerns. I asked Bob Schelen whether this process has been primarily a consensus process that would allow individual input and questioning to come out or whether it has operated by majority rule which might quell the minority voice.

"So far it's been a consensus process for the very reason that the transparency of the school district has been something that has pleased all of us. When one person has a question, it is answered in such an open fashion that all of us get the answer, understand it, and are comfortable with it. So I would say so far it has been a consensus process, but that's only because we haven't had any strong disagreements yet--if we do."

Moreover just because there are ten board members does not mean that further opinions still cannot enter into the meetings. These are regular public meetings that operate under Brown Act principles of open government.

The public is encouraged to participate.

"We haven't had a lot of people come. We've urged and encouraged people to come to the meetings and not a whole lot of people have yet. In terms of any questions that they might have my understand from what we have said and what I have seen at the meetings, is that the financial part of the district is very open to answering questions from anybody. "

Unlike school board meetings, the public has ample opportunity to weigh in, especially if public attendance remains low.

"There is a public comment section. It's an agendized public board meeting. There are situations for public comment. Since we haven't had a large amount of people, at least at the one meeting where there were public people there, they were just sort of incorporated into the process of the committee and it was informal questioning of the materials that were provided by the district."

What Bob Schelen describes here is in many ways, interested members of the public can really weigh in and question process much like a board member could.

"That's the way that right now we're running the meeting. I can't be sure that's how we would run it if there say fifty members of the public coming to the meetings. But right now if there are a small amount of people then there's no question that that's what can and will happen."

In other words, after speaking with Bob Schelen, any individual concerned about accountability or whether this constitutes true oversight has a choice. If they are really concerned about how money is spent in the district, they can come to these meetings and get involved.

My concern with some of the complaints I hear is that these complaints come from individuals who seem to be looking for excuses not to vote for Measure W rather than truly concerned about issues and finding out information about the district's financing.

School finance is extremely complicated, but I have found people like Bruce Colby extremely accommodating to members of the public. This is an opportunity for those who claim they are concerned with accountability to actually get off the pot and do something about it.

The district's budget problems are very real and the district in my view has gone the extra mile really to make their process more transparent and make themselves more accountable to the public. This is a far cry from what happened four years ago. The days of quasi-closed door meetings that were of questionable legality are gone. The lengths that the previous administration and board had gone to keep things out of the public light was extraordinary. But so too is the extent to which the school district and board have gone in the other direction. Most of the complaints about this current board's fiscal policies are unfounded and based either on lack of understanding about school financing or frankly lack of interest by individual members of the public to learn about it.

The Measure Q oversight committee is a good way for the public to get more involved in the process and I strongly encourage members to go to these meetings. I intend to publicize the next meeting and attend it myself and report back on it.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

2007 Year in Review--10 Biggest Vanguard Stories of 2007

As the first full year of the People's Vanguard of Davis comes to completion, we will countdown the top 10 stories from year. This is the second year we have done this.

Last year we counted down the 10 Biggest Stories in Davis.

This year we countdown the 10 biggest stories that we followed on the People's Vanguard of Davis.

We continue with the 9th biggest story: The School Board Elections.

One the biggest areas of concern in 2007 was the Davis Joint Unified School District. The School Board had to deal with a vast array of controversies as we will see later in this countdown. They would also deal with the firing of a superintendent, the hiring of an interim superintendent and finally the hiring of a new superintendent--all in the same year.

The field of four school board candidates turned out to be surprisingly weak and untested.

The early handicapping was:

"The four candidates are Susan Lovenburg who has been very active both on the PTA and in general as a volunteer. Richard Harris a columnist with the Davis Enterprise and former District Director with Congressman Vic Fazio. Bob Schelen, a Researcher/Consultant for Majority Services for the Democratic Party in the State Assembly, and Joseph Spector who [is] a former school psychologist.

I do not know much about Mr. Spector and I am not certain how strong a campaign he is going to run. My early handicapping of this race is that Ms. Lovenburg as the only female running has a tremendous advantage and I would say is likely to win one of the seats. That would leave the three men to vie for the second seat. Harris has already raised a lot of money for this race. Schelen needs to become the alternative to Harris with an emphasis on his support for keeping Valley Oak open and helping disadvantaged kids."

In fact as you'll see, despite a few bumps on the way, the early handicapping held up.

The Vanguard interviewed each of the candidates.

• Susan Lovenburg
• Richard Harris
• Joe Spector
• Bob Schelen

One of the hot-buttoned issues and one of the few issues that drew any kind of differentiation was the issue of Valley Oak. Joe Spector and Bob Schelen attempted to campaign on the Valley Oak issue, but the message did not seem to resonate with the public. Richard Harris was supportive of closing the school and concerned with the fiscal impact of a charter school. Susan Lovenburg also supported the decision to close the school but was more circumspect on the charter school.

As I mentioned previously there were a few controversies along the way. One of them was that the early endorsements were somewhat pushed through the Davis Teachers Association's Political Action Committee.

Here's what we reported at the time:

"The Political Action Committee had originally unanimously endorsed Susan Lovenburg and Joe Spector. The endorsement was viewed as controversial by some of the membership. An election was held at Korematsu which confirmed the original endorsements, but they had low turnout at that meeting and Rep Council made the motion to have another election, and hold it at the school sites where there would be more representation.

At this point, a vote was taken as to whether to endorse both Susan Lovenburg and Joe spector, both names were placed together, and that was rejected by the narrowest of margins--five vote separating the yes and no votes. As a result there was yet another election, but this basically confirmed the results of the second election.

The decision has been made not to endorse in the school board race, instead they have decided to focus their energy on Measure Q and contract negotiations. 98% of the membership voted to endorse Measure Q."

The biggest controversy erupted over an incident originally reported in the Davis Enterprise that Don Winters--campaign manager for Joe Spector AND a Davis High School Teacher had allegedly used class time to stuff campaign envelopes for Joe Spector's campaign.

"In last night's newspaper, the Davis Enterprise ran an above-the-fold story based on a single source that suggested that Davis High School Teacher Don Winters had used classroom time in his capacity as Campaign Manager for Joe Spector to stuff envelopes for the campaign.

According to the Davis Enterprise:

B.J. Kline, a former board member, brought the alleged incident to the attention of Davis High Principal Mike Cawley, two current school board members and The Enterprise.

"This is campaigning at its worst," Kline said. "(It) should not be allowed to happen."

His allegation prompted plenty of discussion Thursday in Davis political circles. But when contacted by The Enterprise for comment, almost no one connected with the alleged incident, the school board campaign or the school district administration had much to say."

At the time, sources from Davis High School denied that the incident occurred and so we ran with that story.

"Students Claim Envelope Stuffing Never Actually Happened"

"The Vanguard has spoken with students off the record who claim that the incident never happened."

This turned out to be false.

By Thursday of the next week, Don Winters admitted to having done exactly what he was accused of and resigned from the Joe Spector Campaign.

"After nearly a week of silence on the matter, Don Winters, campaign Manager for Joe Spector's School Board Campaign came forward last night and released a statement both admitting to using class time to stuff approximately 300 campaign envelopes for Joe Spector and resigning as campaign manager for Joe Spector's campaign."

A column by Bob Dunning on Tuesday was a key in changing Don Winters' thinking.

"Winters, responding to my short e-mail that asked simply "What happened or didn't happen?" never got around to answering the question of whether students used class time to stuff envelopes for the Spector campaign.

In his e-mail, Winters wrote: "I guess what the highly educated voter in Davis will have to decide is not so much 'did it happen,' but does it matter?"

It matters, Don, it matters."

In a statement released to the Vanguard Mr. Winters resigned and accepted full responsibility:

"Effective Wednesday, October 24th, I resign as manager of Joe Spector’s Board of Education campaign. I accept full responsibility for a mistake in judgment I made last week in allowing my students in the final 10 minutes of one class at Davis High School to prepare 300 campaign flyers for mailing. I regret this action. I have met with the high school principal and have accepted appropriate disciplinary action. I apologize today to Joe Spector and to our campaign team, neither of whom had any prior knowledge of this activity. I also offer my sincere regrets to my students and to the Davis community."

The Vanguard also had to apologize for relying on sources that turned to not have been in position to know what had happened and unfortunately for taking the word of the accused at face-value.

However, this was largely a side-show. The school board race ended up just as one would have expected to the school board race to end up.

The Vanguard's final thoughts were captured on the morning after the election amid very low turnout.

"On an evening when the school board races were all but decided during absentee voting and the ballot measures decided shortly thereafter, the story of the day was the extremely low turnout. While the final figures are perhaps a few days away from being made official, it appears certain that turnout did not top 30 percent.

This was not a tremendous surprise given the relatively low interest that the school board election seemed to draw on this blog and throughout the community.

In the end, the results were pretty much as expected. Susan Lovenburg finished first, Richard Harris finished a comfortable, but relatively close second to Lovenburg. There was a considerable gap to the third place finish of Bob Schelen who was narrowly above Joe Spector.

In the low turnout, the establishment and relatively better known candidates won."

Susan Lovenburg and Richard Harris were seated on the school board and on December 13, 2007, they sat in on their first school board meeting. Given some of the issues and controversies they will have to deal with, one could perhaps make the argument that in fact they did not so much as win as they drew the short straw and now will have to pay for that mistake by taking over a school district in the midst of declining enrollment and financial disarray with many of the problems from the previous regime still unresolved.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Sights and Thoughts from Election Night

A few thoughts about the school board race. Back when the slate of candidates were finalized, I handicapped this race in the exact order that it ended up finishing. What that tells me is that the campaigns had very little impact on the final outcome. Rather it was all based on networks, contacts, and prior perceptions. The candidate who won did little to harm themselves and those who finished third and fourth did not do nearly enough to change the dynamics of the race when they entered.

That's kind of the bottom line. When you have a low profile race, and you are likely entering as the underdog, you need to radically change the dynamics and neither Bob Schelen nor Joe Spector were able to do this.

Some suggested that this was some sort of repudiation of the progressives, I do not see it that way. I think the city council is the venue where progressives assert themselves. A repudiation of progressives would be a continuation of the current council. That is a story to be written in June of 2008 not November of 2007.

An interesting observation came from Davis Columnist Bob Dunning last night:

"BY THE NUMBERS … no matter what the above percentages say about the candidates and their respective levels of support, a more accurate picture forms when you run the raw numbers that show Lovenburg received 6,806 votes of the 11,518 cast, which comes out to a mandate-like 59.1 percent … she was the only one of the four to be mentioned on more than half the ballots …"

That is a good way of looking at it that some times gets overlooked when you have two votes in a given election. On the other hand you have to wonder what her mandate is (granted he said mandate-like). I am not certain I really know what she was elected to do in terms that we generally think of as a mandate.

Susan Lovenburg did send us a statement after her victory:

"I’m pleased to have experienced broad-based support throughout the Davis community. I look forward to serving with Richard Harris, and with continuing Trustees Sheila Allen, Gina Daleiden, and Tim Taylor.

I acknowledge the efforts of Bob Schelen and Joe Spector during the campaign, and thank them for their willingness to serve our District.

I’d also like to thank Interim Superintendent Richard Whitmore for his efforts on our behalf, and enthusiastically welcome new superintendent, James Hammond. Together with a community that actively supports children and their education, we will meet the challenges that lie ahead."

My hope is in the coming weeks to do full stories on Susan Lovenburg, Richard Harris, and James Hammond, the new superintendent who was sworn in last night.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Lovenburg, Harris, Measures Q and P win amid low turnout

On an evening when the school board races were all but decided during absentee voting and the ballot measures decided shortly thereafter, the story of the day was the extremely low turnout. While the final figures are perhaps a few days away from being made official, it appears certain that turnout did not top 30 percent.

This was not a tremendous surprise given the relatively low interest that the school board election seemed to draw on this blog and throughout the community.

In the end, the results were pretty much as expected. Susan Lovenburg finished first, Richard Harris finished a comfortable, but relatively close second to Lovenburg. There was a considerable gap to the third place finish of Bob Schelen who was narrowly above Joe Spector.

In the low turnout, the establishment and relatively better known candidates won.

At first the ballot measures looked to be in doubt with Measure P drawing a very narrow margin above the two-thirds needed and Measure Q falling four votes shy of the two-thirds needed. But as the precincts themselves came in, both Measure P and Measure Q passed by comfortable margins with P garnering over 73% and Q just under 73%.

Both Measures won just under 80% of the vote that was cast on election day. So while the absentees mirrored the results of the school board election, there was a sizable gap between the results of the ballot measures. The folks at the election office felt that was somewhat typical, with the gap closing in recent years between absentee and non-absentee voters, nevertheless, absentee voters still tend to be more conservative and less supportive of tax measures.

The Vanguard will have some interviews and postmortems with the winning school board candidates. We are quite pleased that both parcel tax measures passed, the money was badly needed by both the library and the schools. Stay tuned for much more coverage.

----Doug Paul Davis reporting

Sights from the School Board Races

The Vanguard went around to the all of the community events and parties. Here are a collection of pictures from each of the school board candidates and then a collection from other events.

Susan Lovenburg at the home of Ruth Asmundson on September 8, 2007:

Richard Harris at the home of Jay Ziegler on September 28, 2007:

Bob Schelen at the Odd Fellows Hall October 7, 2007 (running an old fashioned "straw hat" campaign):

Joe Spector at his home, November 5, 2007:

And here is a who potpourri of photos from around the community...

---Doug Paul Davis reporting