CUSD Update
Editorial staff

The District Attorney has indicated his office is following up regarding the alleged Brown Act violations at the March 24 Capo school board meeting. Three reform trustees on March 27 issued a statement that a closed-session discussion did not reflect the notice given to the public.

As reported in last week’s update on this blog, a closed-session item on the March 24 agenda was publicly noticed as anticipated litigation. To the contrary, the three reform trustees reported that it was about purchasing additional land from Concorde Development (Dennis Gage) for a football stadium at the $150-million high school, San Juan Hills High School (SJHHS), in San Juan Capistrano.

The superintendent refuted the reform trustees’ March 27 allegations of Brown Act violations. On March 29, the OC Register reported his response: “Superintendent A. Woodrow Carter denied that the district needed additional land for the project or that any laws had been broken during the discussions.”

Several days later, Carter changed his story, making statements to the Capistrano Dispatch and the Dana Point Times. He confirmed the district doesn’t own all the property where it intends to build a football stadium at SJHHS.

Activists have continued pressing for an investigation of CUSD that would include the real estate transaction whereby the district paid $52 million for land next to the dump to build SJHHS. The current old-guard majority is apparently feeling pressure to act before voters remove two old-guard trustees (Marlene Draper and Sheila Benecke) from office, which very likely will happen in the June 24 special recall election. The rush to approve the stadium at SJHHS during a financial crisis calls attention to the old-guard trustees’ desperation. With the D.A. watching, their risking another Brown Act violation should entitle them to a plea of insanity if they face criminal prosecution for deliberately breaking the law.

During the past week, more information about the fuel pipeline adjacent to SJHHS was revealed by a parent on an Internet discussion board. The parent stated a 16-inch-diameter Kinder-Morgan pipeline carries fuel at 1000 psi, possibly within 700 feet of the campus. A state statute requires 1,500 feet between the property and the pipeline. It is believed the pipeline runs through the property CUSD is trying to acquire to build the stadium.

Do the holdover trustees seem obsessed with further enriching Dennis Gage, the developer who sold CUSD the property for the new high school? As background, the district still owes Gage approximately $6 million as a result of a rather strange real estate deal, but CUSD is not currently obligated to pay because Gage hasn’t built any homes on the property near the school. Is Gage groundlessly trying to collect his $6 million before the old-guard majority loses control? If Gage is having the same cash-flow problems as other housing developers, he might want to collect from anyone who owes him a favor. Is it possible he has incriminating or embarrassing information about any of CUSD’s deal-makers? Several years ago, the old trustees approved paying more than $1 million per acre for property Gage purchased for approximately $20,000 per acre. Nothing CUSD officials have said about the price discrepancy makes sense.

Carter and the four holdover trustees have attempted to conceal the need for more land at SJHHS, first denying it altogether and then saying only a “small amount” is needed. At the going price of more than $1 million an acre, there are no small real estate deals at CUSD. After the news broke about the March 24 closed-session controversy, Trustee Mike Darnold, who serves as board president, explained the property acquisition as “normal tweaking that any school of this magnitude would be doing.”

It might be routine for the old-guard trustees, but reform-minded constituents conclude it’s far from normal to hide real estate negotiations in closed session and mischaracterize the process as “anticipated litigation.”

Carter previously stated that CUSD has already spent district funds for improvements (on the SJHHS stadium) on property it doesn’t own. But at the March 28 coffee chat in San Juan Capistrano, constituents heard Carter say that work won’t take place on property the district doesn’t own. As an additional problem for Carter, didn’t this work recently go out for bid with approvals yet to be voted on?

For years, those who observed the lies of former Supt. James Fleming said he had a remarkable memory for keeping his stories straight, particularly with remembering which lie he had told to which group.

The obvious question remains, why is Carter going along with the illegal acts of the holdover trustees? If the old-guard majority is trying to hide anything, they’re doing a poor job of it. They’ve managed to air their ineptitude in all the newspapers, and they have the full attention of the D.A.