Nov 09, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "Old portables, too
few bathrooms, toilets that don’t work properly.
Capistrano Unified, fix your plumbing before you
move on to your yard. I’ve been impressed with
interim Superintendent Carter Woodrow thus far and
agree with his philosophy of planning the plan,
then executing the plan. Well, when you look to
the district for a comprehensive facilities
construction and maintenance plan, it’s still
being formulated. That plan needs to be in place
before more dollars are spent on non-essential,
non-safety, non-classroom items."
Volzke is
the editor of the The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Repairs, Facilities Plan, Woodrow Carter
May 08, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "Capo Unified
officials intend to lease about one-third of their
new Valle Road headquarters, using the income for
facilities improvements at schools in San Juan
Capistrano and Mission Viejo -- areas that
contributed to the building's construction cost.
New Superintendent Dennis Smith said the district
will actually operate more effectively in the
smaller space, and the lease could generate up to
$400,000 a year. The construction of the building,
which will cost more than $50,000,000 with
interest, was one of the sparks that ignited the
recall fire."
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Administration Building, Budget, Dennis Smith
May 05, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch Capo Unified Trustees
on Monday [May 7] will consider how to cut
millions of dollars to balance their budget. Also
on the agenda: leasing out district office space
to raise $400,000 a year. The meeting is at 7 p.m.
at district offices on Valle Road."
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Budget Cuts, Administration Building
May 04, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "Students were held in
classrooms for more than two hours today after two
small blasts echoed through the central mall at
Dana Hills High School. No one was injured, and
three students were held for questioning, a
district spokeswoman said. The devices --
chemicals in water-bottle-type containers -- went
off shortly after noon. They released little
smoke, but district officials, sheriff's deputies
and firefighters locked down the campus for the
remainder of the day while investigating."
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: DHHS, Health & Safety
May 03, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch
"Capo
Unified officials and teachers have reached a
tentative agreement in their bitter contract dispute,
which has seen teachers picketing school campuses.
The agreement’s key provisions call for a 4% salary
increase for the 2006-07 school year, retroactive to
July 1, 2006; a 3% increase for the 2007-08 school
year; and a compression of the salary schedule. In
conjunction with the salary increase, the district
will continue to pay any additional costs of medical,
dental and vision insurance for all teachers."
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Teachers Union, Salaries
Mar 05, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “...
none of the trustees have commented on the report,
which essentially sustained allegations made
during a failed recall attempt, but said nothing
violated the law.”
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation, Recall Campain 2005-06, Culture of Corruption
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “Lackey filed his
lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court after a
former district employee provided copies of
agendas for Saturday meetings trustees held under
the guise of evaluating the performance of
then-Superintendent Fleming ...”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Open Meetings Law, Fleming Trustees, Ron Lackey
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “While
employee performance evaluations are allowed to be
discussed privately, trustees relied on the
reasoning that since Fleming was responsible for
anything that happened in the school district, a
wide range of topics could be discussed
privately.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Open Meetings Law, Fleming Trustees
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “Trustees admitted no
wrongdoing in the settlement, but agreed to pay
$16,000 in legal fees for Dana Point resident Ron
Lackey and undergo training in the Ralph M. Brown
Act, the state’s public meeting law.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Open Meetings Law, Fleming Trustees, Ron Lackey
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “The recall was
unsuccessful but ultimately touched off a series
of events that saw the district’s spokesman retire
and leak several inflammatory documents to the
public, Fleming retire after 15 years at the helm,
one longtime trustee decision to not seek
re-election, while two other incumbents ran but
lost their normally safe seats. Other high-ranking
district officials targeted by district critics
have also retired.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano
Dispatch.
Tags: Recall Campain 2005-06, David Smollar, James Fleming, Crystal Kochendorfer, John Casabianca, Shelia Henness, David Doomey
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "District officials
are grappling with a $9 million shortfall, which
interim Superintendent Chuck McCully has laid on
the shoulders of bad decisions: a repeated
practice of spending next year’s money this year
and continually dipping into reserves rather than
making cuts along the way." Volzke
is the publisher of the Capistrano
Dispatch.
Tags: Budget, Budget Cuts, Charles McCully
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "McCully also
announced the district should consider hiring an
in-house lawyer to cut its $2 million legal
bill..." Volzke
is the publisher of the Capistrano
Dispatch.
Tags: Budget Cuts, Charles McCully, Legal Costs
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “Trustees in September
unanimously agreed to pay $400 an hour for the law
firm of Ronald G. Bower and Associates to
represent Fleming, while they hired defense
attorney Paul Meyer at $395 to represent other
district employees.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Legal Costs, Criminal Prosecutions, James Fleming, Ronald Bower, Paul Meyer
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “... when trustees
agreed to Fleming’s request to pay his attorney,
they said they would do so as long as there was no
evidence of wrongdoing on his part.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Legal Costs, Criminal Prosecutions, James Fleming
Feb 23, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "Parents this month
told trustees their independent report found
Fleming acted inappropriately more than once –
including sending district officials to the
Registrar of Voters to gather the names of parents
who circulated recall petitions against trustees.
District employees then used school records to
match the names of the political activists to
information about their children.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation, Enemies Lists, James Fleming
Feb 13, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “The district is under
investigation by the Orange County Grand Jury for
a litany of alleged acts of wrongdoing, and
trustees agreed to pay Fleming's attorney, as long
as there was no evidence he acted
inappropriately.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Grand Jury 2006-07, Legal Costs
Feb 13, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “The independent
investigation commissioned by the district found
Fleming sent district employees to the Registrar
of Voters office to review recall petitions --
that alone is illegal -- and then coupled the
names of political activists with district
information about their children. Parents told the
board on Tuesday that should be enough to cut off
Fleming's attorney payments.”
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano
Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation, Enemies Lists, James Fleming, Legal Costs
Feb 10, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "The
board received the report a month ago, but didn't
comment on it then. The public didn't have a
chance then, either, but emotions soared again
after learning the district compiled two lists
linking the names of political activists with
information about their children. The second list
was created after district officials and trustees
vehemently denied the existence of even the
first."
Vozke
comments on the lack of any district response to the
published report from the special investigator hired
to look into allegations of wrongdoing by former
Superintendent James Fleming. Volzke is the publisher
of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation, Enemies Lists, Dishonesty, Marlene Draper
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "We learned there
wasn’t just one list that coupled the names of
parents active in the recall with information
about their children, but two – the second even
compiled after the recall attempt officially
failed."
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Enemies Lists, Waldrip Investigation
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "We learned that not
only did former Superintendent Jim Fleming’s son
get a job with the district’s contract plumber,
but so did relatives of other employees –
including that of the district employee who
supervised the contracts at times. And we learned
that former Board President Marlene Draper now
recognizes it is “ill-advised” to vote on district
contracts with Culbertson-Adams, because her
daughter is an executive there. That concern, by
the way, surfaced in 2002."
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Nepotism, Conflicts, James Fleming, Marlene Draper, Culbertson-Adams
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "The biggest question
is unanswered: Are these actions aberrations or
business as usual? Did Jim Fleming, who ran the
district for 15 years before retiring last year,
routinely compile lists of those most critical of
the district and then link those parents with the
names of their children, their schools, their
teachers, even their home addresses? Was this a
bad decision in the heat of a recall battle, or
something more along the lines of Nixon’s infamous
plumbers? Given that the lists were created more
than a year apart, it’s a fair question ... if all
of this happened in 2005 and 2006 for the failed
recall, isn’t it reasonable to wonder what
happened in 2002, during the frenzy of the
Whispering Hills/San Juan Hills High battle?"
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Enemies Lists, Waldrip Investigation, Recall Campain 2005-06, SJHHS
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "There’s been too much
silence on behalf of our elected officials over
the past year. And when they did speak, it was
denials a single list even existed, much less two
and attempts to push the responsibility of the
problems onto recall supporters, the media, the
whistleblower who made it public, everyone but
those elected to be responsible. That raises the
most important question: What will the four
veteran trustees do to apologize, to rebuild that
trust?"
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Fleming Trustees, Enemies Lists, David Smollar
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "Waldrip points out
Fleming is already gone. Other changes have been
made. Those facts, alone, he suggests, help. But
trustees shouldn’t take any comfort in that: the
public deserves more than for them to sit back and
let time heal the wounds. This process can’t be
passive on their part."
Volzke is
the publisher of the Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "...
the release this week of an independent
investigation commissioned by the district
disclosed for the first time that names from the
recall petitions were also matched with student
information – even after the recall was
over.”
Parents
long ago knew of a reported “hit list” that combined
information about recall proponents with information
about their students’ school and teachers, and also
knew that district employees improperly combined
through petitions submitted to the Registrar of
Voters after the recall failed. Now they also know
that Capistrano Unified district officials matched
the names of recall proponents with information about
their students even after the recall had failed, and
this has prompted a renewed sense of outrage among
critics of the district’s leadership. Volzke is the
publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation, Enemies Lists
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “The first “hit list”
was generated in Spring 2005 after district
officials sought to see if email addresses in an
email blast sent by recall leader Kevin Murphy
were improperly garnered from a district computer.
Then Superintendent James Fleming initially denied
the list existed, then explained it to the board.
The district in 2006 determined its records were
uncompromised. Fleming denied it was a list to
track political enemies, as recall proponents
allege.”
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Enemies Lists, Dishonesty, Waldrip Investigation
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “Fleming also took
advantage of a “mole” in the recall effort, and
passed information about the recall effort on to
board members.”
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation, Mole
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “The report confirms
nearly all of the allegations made during last
year’s recall battle, but Waldrip also
acknowledges he tried to avoid duplicating the
work of district attorney’s office investigators
looking into the district, as well as
public-meeting-law violations alleged in a civil
lawsuit against the district.”
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Recall Campain 2005-06, Waldrip Investigation, DA Investigations, Open Meetings Law
Jan 11, 2007
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch “The investigation,
initiated in August 2006, involved 49 interviews
with 32 people. Some people declined to talk with
him, Waldrip says in the report, but he does not
identify them. He did interview former
Superintendent James Fleming and Trustee Marlene
Draper – the only elected school board official he
talked to.”
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: Waldrip Investigation
Aug 24, 2006
Jonathan Volzke, The Capistrano
Dispatch "How about the Capo
Unified Schools debacle – will voters take Hart
and Swerdlin, to task for a resolution supporting
the district trustees at the onset of the recall?"
Volzke is
the publisher of The Capistrano Dispatch.
Tags: SJC City Council, Culture of Corruption
