Erin Kutnick’s Blog

In a not-so surprising move by the school board today, the trustees voted yet again to waste our limited district dollars on lawyers and nonsense.  I guess the $50,000 that they already spent on Mr. Kinsler so far to stop the process of democracy is not enough of a waste.  Now they want to sue the county committee???

After almost 3 hours of closed session, Addonizio, Bryson, Christensen, Winsten, and Maddox (who wasn’t on the dais at the beginning of the meeting but driving around the parking lot instead) came out and announced that “CUSD has voted to retain legal counsel in regards to the September 30 meeting of the county committee”.   Also interesting to note is that Dr. Mahler had driven away (very fast) about 45 minutes before this and probably was not part of that decision/discussion.

It’s just amazing to me that a school board can complain about the cost of the election out of one side of their mouth while at the very same time vote to spend more money on nonsense out of the other side.  How much will this little legal battle cost us and is this what the constituents of CUSD want?  I don’t think so!

In addition to all of the money to be spent on this new lawsuit, we saw four (4) attorney’s go into the back room today.  So how much at “overtime” pay on a Saturday did that cost us?

More wasted dollars at the hands of our school board and not one penny going to the children or education.  Shameful!!!

I attended the County Committee’s organization meeting last night and things got a little interesting.  Exactly three weeks after the decision to accept the petition, the recall committee has still not accepted the reality and came out guns blazing last night against the committee.  Several including a board member accused the committee of conspiracy among other things hoping to achieve what?  The decision has been made.  The election has been set.

Echoing Trustee Maddox’s comments last week, they seem to think that parents wanting more local control and better accountability is some type of “scheme”.  Actually, it’s democracy.

What are they so afraid of?  That voters will know their candidates before they vote?  That constituents will be able to contact trustees and have open and honest dialogue?  Why is this such a problem?

Never a dull moment in CUSD!

Last night, we finally had our chance to present the petition to the OC Committee on School District Organization.  We began this process last March and while we have had tremendous support, we really did not know what to expect from the committee since we are the first school district in Orange County to try to make this change.

I’m happy to report that the months of hard work really paid off last night.  With our presentation, a room full of supporters, and some great speakers, we were able to convince the commitee to accept our petition and order a June 8, 2010 election.

But the work is just beginning.  We now need to reach out to voters district wide to make sure they understand the change that is being proposed and most importantly, we need good candidates to step up to run in November 2010.

A huge thank you to all of the wonderful people who dedicated so much of their time over the past six months to gathering signatures, talking to people, attending meetings, and PUTTING CHILDREN FIRST!