Comments on: Bond scandal now has villain; prosecutor, come on down

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:04:58 +0000

That’s it. Blame the teachers again! After all, they go to school for about 17-18 years in order to get their credential, all in order to earn the big paycheck that’s usually a little more than a high school graduate makes, and on top of that they get little to no respect from many of the students and their parents. They have nothing to do with how districts or even their own schools spend discretionay funds. Most teachers I know spend several hundreds of dollars a year of their own money to use in their respective classrooms. They do not even determine what books are purchsed by their districts. Districts ASK teachers what books they want to use but ultimately go out and purchase whatever they want. DO NOT lay this out on teachers because they want what everyone else wants, some job security and a fair shake.

By: PJ

PJ — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:33:37 +0000

Melody Peterson did a great job here. If the Register keeps up the non-PC investigative reporting, I might even subscribe. So much of “news” is just blue-state propaganda.

By: doug

doug — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:50:58 +0000

hondo is right.
the teacher supply “wishlist” gets longer every year for parents.

we donate for paper towels, sanitary wipes, cleaning solutions etc.

yet the teacher union is the second largest union in the country.
who’s screwing who here?

california is so screwed up.

and so help me if i hear a teacher teaching the “rock paper scissors, capitalism vs. communism game” in class at my kids school.
wrong on so many levels.

By: Many scandals regarding CABS throughout state

Many scandals regarding CABS throughout state — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 17:37:56 +0000

For an incredible one, see the latest at the West Contra Costa Unified School District in Richmond. So complicated and corrupt that virtually no one can follow it, but it allegedly features a secret fund where the district deposited excessive tax assessments. The district allegedly manipulated the tax assessments for repaying (with interest) the 2005 Measure J bonds in order to get a waiver from the state to take on additional debt through the sale of the 2012 Measure E bonds.

Voters authorized the district through Measure E in November 2012 to borrow $360 million (not including interest) for construction (and iPads?) through bond sales. The district already had debt service of $1.77 billion.

By: Hondo

Hondo — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:46:01 +0000

This is such a boring subject that is SOOOOOOO important. Borrow 100million, pay back 900 million in 30 years. This will work if we have Wiemar republic inflation. This is all because of the gigantic pay-benifit-pension packages from the public unions. The unions have taken all the money to the point the schools can’t even afford pencils anymore.
Hondo…

By: eyeamok

eyeamok — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:44:30 +0000

bond deals that charged payments to future taxpayers

We used to call this INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE.

By: Rex the Wonder Dog!

Rex the Wonder Dog! — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:15:26 +0000

The article lays the blame a bit too entirely on Baum. School board members aren’t all naive. Some are just looking for easy ways to avoid making tough fiscal decisions and angering the local teachers union.
The school board members should be brought up on charges also, malfeasance of duty is one, as a fiduciary duty is owed to the public and they clearly violated that duty, at a minimum negligent (which I do not buy). They should also be charged with being felony stupid. All of them. A HS grad with a small pea sized brain KNOWS that CAB’S are out right scams.

The George K. Baum company should be charged with campaign law violations, with fraud, and even RICO as you could use the wire /telephone use as the predicate crime to invoke the RICO statute (against the public), and with at least 20 other crimes I can think of but won’t bother listing.