CUSD Update, Aug. 22
Editorial staff

Last week’s update included a report from the Aug. 11 board meeting on the “Pipeline Risk Analysis” at San Juan Hills High School. This week’s update was written by a CUSD parent who is closely following this issue. Another parent, Jim Reardon, who discovered the location of a high-pressure jet-fuel pipeline near the campus, questions the school’s safety.

Carter is behaving as though he is actually following the Board's instruction in waiting for the Board to review and vote to approve sending the Pipeline Risk Analysis to the California Dept. of Education (CDE) for approval. However, as the post from Jim Reardon's blog indicates (included below), Carter's own email confirms that he has already submitted it to the CDE for approval - in direct insubordination of the Board's instruction to him.

In the meantime, if you visit the blog, Jim has posted input from a petroleum pipeline expert who found several serious flaws in the Pipeline Risk Analysis that Carter commissioned. The input and questions Jim has received from several different experts about the accuracy of the Pipeline Risk Analysis are, by the way, the reason the Trustees wanted more time to review it.

In true educrat form, however, Carter went behind the backs of the trustees in an effort to ram this flawed "risk analysis" through the CDE without serious and thoughtful discussion or consideration of the safety issues. It seems he is continuing to do exactly what got CUSD into such trouble with the SJHHS school site to begin with – trying to rubberstamp questionable and downright unsafe conditions at that $155M site. It begs the question, why is he even placing it on the agenda for discussion and/or approval, when he's already gone around the trustees to submit it to the CDE? 

Carter's actions come as no surprise to me. In my opinion, Carter has already shown his true colors by trying to grab an extra $410,000 for himself by illegally inserting a severance clause into his contract without the Board's knowledge or approval while laying off hundreds of teachers and employees. To add insult to injury, he then publicly lied about his contract - repeatedly, as demonstrated in his own memos in which he contradicts himself. Meanwhile, CUSD continues to hover on the brink of bankruptcy.

Then there's the issue of the SJHHS site being in violation of the law in several areas, issues of which Carter is aware but on which he has taken no action. You can expect to see these issues surfacing, now that we have the documentation (which we have spent the past three to four months collecting through Open Public Records Act requests).

Here's the post about the risk analysis. The report from the pipeline expert(s) that reveals flaws in the pipeline risk analysis is also posted on Jim's blog.

Follow the link, Wednesday, August 13, 2008: Orchestrated Chaos and Broken Commitment

There is considerable speculation that CUSD staff may have submitted the new pipeline safety analysis to the California Department of Education (CDE) before it was approved by the CUSD Board. A document has come my way that appears to confirm this.

This e-mail thread  also provides insight into thinking of CUSD staff regarding safety. In fact, I see no mention of it.

http://cusd.googlegroups.com/web/20080814+Email+Thread.pdf

The document further supports that fact that Dr. Fitzgerald's appearance at the Aug. 11 Board meeting was unexpected. "She will be out of town tomorrow through the weekend to attend [redacted] services and wasn't planning on returning Monday unless we specifically need her to attend the meeting. While she has graciously offered to attend, I think it would be unreasonable to ask her to cut short a family trip of this nature. We would have to let her know today if we need her there."

How easily something so innocent becomes so political in the absence of an explanation from those involved!

Notice, if you will, that Dr. Fitzgerald's response to Trustees, dated July 31, was not actually sent to Trustees until Aug. 6. Why would staff delay delivering this information to Trustees?

Lastly, a critical piece of information has not surfaced:

"Also, Greg is preparing a memo for you regarding liability questions which were raised previously."

Where is this memo?

If it was provided to trustees in closed session, it may be a Brown Act violation. If not, I would call on CUSD to publish this memo on their Website alongside the analysis.

I recall that Mr. Carter and Mr. Bergman promised that this entire subject would be handled "transparently," and in "public session." What happened to this commitment?