Showing posts with label Voice of San Diego. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voice of San Diego. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Schoolhouse Lawyer Who Helped Hire His Overseer

Source: Voice of San Diego
By EMILY ALPERT

Monday, March 2, 2009 | Lawyers from a firm that has received millions of dollars in business from a public agency that handles lawsuits for school districts have, at least twice in recent years, helped it screen potential employees who later oversaw outside attorneys' work.

The Risk Management Joint Powers Authority, a public agency composed of dozens of local school districts and run through the San Diego County Office of Education, has paid the law firm of Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz nearly $7 million between July 2002 and July 2008 to handle lawsuits brought against school districts.

Two shareholders in the firm, Daniel Shinoff and Jeffery Morris, have helped screen job applicants for the agency by sitting on the first of two interview panels that candidates undergo before being hired. Such interviewers don't make the final hiring decisions, but they narrow the hiring pool by asking predetermined questions provided by the human resources department and ranking candidates based on their responses.

Including the attorneys in the interview process means that in at least two instances, an employee has owed his or her job, in part, to one of the firms that he or she is hired to monitor.

The practice is among a bevy of complaints lodged in a lawsuit by a former authority employee, Rodger Hartnett, who alleges that the Stutz Artiano firm received a disproportionate share of work "based on personal relationships" in the office rather than merit. Harnett, who was interviewed for his job by a panel that included Shinoff, claims in his wrongful termination suit against the County Office of Education that he was fired because of his complaints about Stutz Artiano.

Several legal and ethics experts cautioned that the practice of having the contracted attorneys aid in the hiring process was fraught with the risk that employees would feel they owed loyalty to the attorneys.

"The lawyer's incentive is clearly to hire a 'yes' person, a person who won't challenge their costs and will stick with and approve the lawyers they already have," said University of San Diego law professor Shaun Martin.

Shinoff said he personally has only interviewed employees for one position, the claims coordinator job that ultimately went to Hartnett five and a half years ago; Morris likewise said he had interviewed employees for just one position, that of a claims adjuster, and couldn't recall the date. Both claims coordinators and claims adjusters analyze the agency's legal exposure, oversee litigation and create plans with attorneys on how to pursue and resolve cases, according to job descriptions.

Neither of the two employees would choose which attorneys get which cases. But they are one layer of oversight in an agency that handles millions of dollars in legal work annually. They help ensure that attorneys do not run up unreasonable bills.

County Office of Education spokesman Jim Esterbrooks said that including the attorneys in the interviewing process wasn't problematic. In a written statement, he said it is common practice at his agency for vendors to help screen employees because they are familiar with the work. The practice could be continued in the future, he said.

"Such a position has negligible impact," Esterbrooks said. He added that Shinoff "doesn't have any hiring clout or even close."

The amount of money paid to Stutz Artiano from July 2002 to July 2008 dwarfs what was paid to two other firms that handle lawsuits for the agency — $1.56 million and $324,000, respectively — in the same time period. The firm has decades of experience handling school cases, and its attorneys are reputed to be aggressive litigators and have earned praise from school officials across the county. Some school districts request them by name.

Superintendent Describes Practice as Common

Job applicants at the agency typically undergo two panel interviews before they are hired. The first is a screening interview in which a panel of interviewers asks predetermined questions provided by the human resources department, listens to the candidates, and ranks them based on their answers. The panels have ranged in size from two to four interviewers in recent years, according to the human resources department. Some applicants also take tests relevant to their work. Shinoff and Morris said they have only sat on that first panel.

The second and final interview for risk management jobs is performed by a panel that includes Executive Director of Risk Management Diane Crosier, and the ultimate authority on all hiring decisions is county Superintendent of Schools Randolph Ward.

The County Office of Education initially said it could not answer questions about the hiring process because of the Hartnett lawsuit and referred voiceofsandiego.org to the transcript of his disciplinary hearing, which gave limited information about the process. It later supplied some basic information about the hiring process through written statements and a brief comment provided by its spokesman.

Ward and other County Office employees declined to be interviewed on the topic. Simple questions sometimes took a week or more to answer. And the agency required voiceofsandiego.org to file a written request for economic disclosure forms that are supposed to be readily available with no questions asked.

Numerous former agency employees did not return calls or declined to speak on the hiring process and the Stutz Artiano attorneys' involvement. Testimony at the Hartnett disciplinary hearing was sometimes difficult to reconcile with other statements.

"We often ask some of the technical contractors who have expertise in that area to come in and participate on a hiring committee because they have the kind of expertise that we don't as lay people," Ward said, according to the transcript of Hartnett's disciplinary hearing. He added, "It's common that you will bring somebody from the private sector to give you that perspective."

Yet information supplied by the agency dating back to July 2005 shows no other attorneys or vendors sitting on the interview panels, which typically have included business analysts from the county office and managers from school districts. No earlier records were available from the human resources department, said Pam Gilles, senior director of internal business services.

Ward declined to be interviewed to clarify how his remarks could be reconciled with the information supplied by human resources staff, and Esterbrooks said that Crosier had declined to provide examples of other agencies that used the practice.

Risk management experts from across California said such a hiring policy was not standard, but there are few fixed standards for hiring in such agencies. James Marta, accreditation manager for the California Association of Joint Powers Authorities, said he didn't know of any other agencies that use their panel attorneys to help interview applicants, but did not think the practice was inherently problematic.

"You will have the pressure that, if you see something they are doing, you don't want to disclose it because they hired you," Marta said. But the same pressure would exist if the employee saw their boss doing something improper, he said, adding, "It's a natural thing that happens. I don't think that's extraordinary."

Other legal experts and ethicists were wary of the practice. Screening employees for the same department that sends the attorneys business and tracks their costs "certainly raises ethical questions," government ethicist Bob Stern said, even if the specific employees themselves do not assign legal work. Martin, the USD law professor, said it was extremely rare for a law firm to be involved in hiring people who would monitor them. It is not categorically wrong, Martin said, but is "fraught with danger."

Stern said, "The problem is, I'll hire you, you hire me."

University of San Diego public interest law professor Robert Fellmeth found the practice counter-intuitive. He wrote in an e-mail that the agency employees would naturally view their attorney interviewers as people "to whom you owe some loyalty." That runs exactly counter to the actual obligation from the attorneys to their clients and overseers in the agency, Fellmeth wrote. Consulting an attorney during hiring would only make sense if there are legal questions about the hiring process, he wrote.

Former Employee Alleges 'Insider Dealings'

While employed for the agency, Hartnett complained that Stutz Artiano was getting a disproportionate share of work and expressed concern about its billings, according to an internal memo and testimony at his disciplinary hearing.

In his lawsuit and a mediation brief, Hartnett alleges that he was fired for blowing the whistle on "insider dealings" to the firm and specifically to Shinoff. He wrote in his lawsuit that he came to believe that "Mr. Shinoff was receiving business or a disproportionate volume of business based on personal relationships within our department rather than on merit."

The agency counters that Hartnett was fired for negligence, insubordination and dishonesty, including discussing a confidential file with an outside attorney and lying about it. He thus "violated specific SDCOE Risk Management procedures regarding confidentiality of claims files," according to his initial August 2007 termination notice. An internal Office of Education commission found that his termination was "for good cause and not excessive" and that he was not the victim of retaliation.

"These were very serious violations of trust which had the potential, if repeated, of seriously harming the relationship between the [agency] and its member districts and the districts' legal interests," wrote the three-member commission of Mary Beall, Miriam Rothman and Bert Seal in a decision signed by Rothman. It concluded, "Hartnett did not prove that the legitimate reasons (for his termination) were a pretext for retaliation."

Shinoff called Hartnett's allegations "vulgar accusations" that there was no point rebutting, and declined to comment on whether they were true.

"You work hard for people," he said. "Your work speaks for itself."

Hartnett is appealing the finding in Superior Court. "I discovered and reported a culture of corruption within my department involving conflicts of interest and interpersonal relationships," Hartnett wrote in his suit.

He has questioned whether it is appropriate for employees to retain the same legal firms for their personal use that they hire for the agency. Stutz Artiano has represented Rick Rinear, the employee who makes the ultimate decision of which attorneys to assign to handle cases, in at least two cases including a dispute over a plot of land in Jamul that was settled last year. Hartnett alleges that Rinear could have gotten discounts on services because he has the power to steer business toward Stutz Artiano, but could not provide evidence that a discount had been given.

Rinear declined to be interviewed and didn't respond to a request for his private legal bills to check the allegation. Esterbrooks said he was unable to provide any details about the process by which Rinear was hired in 1992.

Hartnett also alleged in his suit and interviews that Shinoff regularly bought lunches for employees, including senior claims investigator John Vincent, senior claims adjuster Lisa Jensen, and Crosier, who worked briefly for Stutz Artiano 14 years ago. She also had worked alongside Shinoff at a previous job, according to her testimony at Hartnett's hearing. Crosier reported no gifts on financial disclosure forms between 2004 and 2007; the agency said employees in Vincent and Jensen's positions aren't required to file such forms under San Diego County Office of Education board policies.

Under state law, gifts that exceed more than $50 annually from a single source typically must be disclosed, said Roman Porter, executive director of the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Few Standards on Assigning Legal Work

Sixty-eight school districts and charter schools largely in San Diego County have joined the Risk Management Joint Powers Authority to insure themselves against claims and lawsuits for liability, property damage and workers' compensation. The authority analyzes claims and hires attorneys in suits against the school districts and charters. Members pay into their own funds with the authority to cover the costs of their claims.

Some of its employees oversee attorneys and work out litigation plans with them; Hartnett said in interviews that he also reviewed cases to make sure that legal bills were reasonable. The authority is administered by the county superintendent of schools and the San Diego County Office of Education, which hires and supervises its employees.

Attorneys at the Joint Powers Authority are selected for each case by Rinear, who defers to school districts if they choose an attorney first, according to the hearing transcript. He chooses from three firms: Stutz; Winet, Patrick & Weaver; and Kleindinst, Fliehman & McKillop. Agency policies say only that cases are assigned to the attorney who is most qualified to handle them with consideration given to the school district or charter school's wishes. It doesn't specify what would make an attorney more or less qualified to handle a case.

During the Hartnett hearing, Crosier said she believes that Shinoff gets more work simply because school districts often ask for him in employment cases, which tend to be more expensive. The same explanation was given by Lora Duzyk, assistant superintendent of business services, in a memo to Hartnett in 2007.

Crosier's claim cannot be verified because Esterbrooks said the agency does not routinely document whether school districts ask for a specific lawyer. Crosier described Shinoff as the most experienced of the three attorneys they hired. Some school districts said they have specifically requested Shinoff; others said they trust the judgment of the agency and would rarely demand an attorney by name.

Government agencies such as the Joint Powers Authority are free to select professionals, including attorneys, without competitive bidding. Some choose to do competitive bidding anyway to reduce costs and foster competition. Harold Pumford, chief executive officer of the Association of Governmental Risk Pools, said there are no firm standards on how to assign cases to attorneys.

"The fact that one firm gets more work than others is not, per se, an improper practice," said Jose Gonzales, deputy general counsel for San Diego Unified, which is not part of the Joint Powers Authority. "It's up to the clients to make that decision."

School district leaders such as Encinitas Superintendent Lean King said Shinoff had a solid reputation for defending school districts on cases in which a lot of money is at stake. Mike Castanos, assistant superintendent of business for National School District, said the district has specifically requested the "highly regarded" firm in the past. And Carlsbad Superintendent John Roach called him simply "good."

"He is aggressive, and if you have a case that fits that, I could see requesting Dan," Roach said.

In his more than 25 years of work with the agency, Shinoff has defended Fallbrook schools for yanking an article and a student editorial on sex education from a school paper; he fended off a negligence claim against Grossmont schools from grieving parents of two teens shot dead by a classmate. And school districts that do not contract with the agency have also used Stutz Artiano, as well as Shinoff. San Diego Unified, for instance, hired the firm to help negotiate a contract for former Superintendent Carl Cohn.

Not everyone is satisfied with the firm. Critics abound at MiraCosta College, where Shinoff was involved in the controversial aftermath of an investigation of the illegal sale of palm trees at the college. Several college trustees complained that Shinoff pressured them to award a roughly $1.6 million settlement package to then-President Victoria Richart after faculty and staffers criticized her handling of a costly investigation of the palm tree scandal.

"I share in [another trustee's] belief that Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz failed to properly represent the College," wrote board member Judy Strattan in a legal declaration.

Stutz Artiano was also criticized by Julie Hatoff, the former vice president of the college, who unsuccessfully sought to have the attorneys disqualified from representing MiraCosta in her suit against the school. She claimed that the firm never told her it was representing the college — and not her — in their conversations. Shinoff was also mentioned in a lawsuit against the college by resident Leon Page, who argued that the attorney placed the interests of Richart ahead of those of taxpayers and the board and prodded them to approve an excessive buyout that he believes violated state law.

A judge ruled in September that the payout was not illegal; Page is appealing the ruling.

Please contact Emily Alpert directly at emily.alpert@voiceofsandiego.org with your thoughts, ideas, personal stories or tips.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Voice of SD: Bishop’s Exit and the Widening Schism

Bishop’s Exit and the Widening Schism

Source: http://voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/03/13/columnists/themerge/983merge030308.txt

By Ian S. Port

Monday, March 3, 2008 | It was all but certain that most of the throng of teachers, staff and parents who filled the multi-purpose room at Del Mar Hills Academy Feb. 26 would leave in defeat.

If Thomas F. Bishop were going to remain at the helm of the school district he’s led for a decade, that evening’s gathering -- what became a sort of protest/wake for a leader many love, followed by the final vote for his resignation -- would never have happened.

They knew it, and came in force anyway.

So there was a none-too-subtle feeling of desperation at Del Mar Hills that night, one that seems certain to emanate through the district for some time. No matter what one thinks of Bishop, who has loyal supporters and ardent detractors among both parents and staff, what happened last Tuesday served notice that Del Mar now needs some serious healing.

By 6 p.m., when the board of trustees of the Del Mar Union School District emerged from their closed session meeting, no empty seats remained in the big room. The crowd, mostly dozens of Bishop supporters, bristled with indignant energy. In what I heard of their conversations, outrage, worry and shock simmered. They would soon boil over.

The Del Mar trustees sit at a line of foldout tables on a stage at the front of the room, about three feet above the audience. To sit there that evening, daunted by more than 32 speaker slips, looking out at a room about to erupt, could not have been easy (if their faces were any indication). At least not for the three-person majority whose agenda it was to axe Bishop.

But as many stunned district employees reminded them that night, learning that the captain of your ship just got sent down the plank isn’t a piece of cake, either. Deborah Hanna, a third grade teacher with 31 years in the district, got a stinging public comment session going.

"Do I have too much power in my classroom?" she asked, protesting critics who decried the superintendent’s hand as too mighty. "Do I have too much power when deciding how to teach the state standards?"

The room exploded -- and I do mean exploded -- with cheers and applause as she finished, a cry that told of aching anticipation for that moment in those who sounded it.

The superintendent’s resignation was opposed with a brew of rational appeal, raw emotion and rhetorical assault -- with an emphasis on the final two. The best case against Bishop’s resignation was simply that the $287,000 it will cost (at a minimum) simply isn’t worth it in a year when such financial misery is expected to rain down on California public schools. Especially not with his contract up in two years.

Few let the board forget that.

"It appears you let your lust for power stand in the way of good judgment," parent Kelli Politoske told the board. "Why did you force Tom Bishop to resign? Why this shotgun divorce? ... Why the rush to fire our only advocate at the state level?"

A staggering number of speakers -- many of them staff and instructors that Bishop himself had hired -- far exceeded their three-minute time limit in offering praise for their boss.

"We know full well that we are better educators because of his support and leadership," retired district employee Martha Cox said, bring on another thundercloud of cheers from the packed house.

When parents who were thrilled to see Bishop depart took the mic, the trickle of applause from a back corner left no doubt about who was in the minority.

"There aren’t a lot of parents here speaking in support of Mr. Bishop because he frankly didn’t listen to parents," said Ginny Merrifield, a district parent and frequent critic of the superintendent, who managed the election campaigns of the board members who pushed him to resign.

"He misrepresented the facts, he lied and he collaborated with others to undermine the board. I think it’s fair to call the question of whether or not he’s willing to work with the board," she said, over a swell of booing.

The roughly 90 minutes of verbal combat yielded a spate of interesting charges:

First, that board member Katherine White should resign, be recalled or be censured for a quote she made in my last column about other unsavory goings on in the Del Mar district. (Goings-on that were not only never denied by any of the speakers, but which were in fact fleshed out by one of them, who added details that White did not offer.)

(Right-click and press Play to listen)

Second, that your Merge-land correspondent is in fact a "crony" of White, Annette Easton and Steven McDowell, the board majority who ousted Bishop. (I try hard to be fair and honest.)

Third, that it was the goal of the new board majority to oust Bishop from the start, a claim bolstered by a quote White gave to the Union-Tribune in 2006, where she mentioned the option of buying out Bishop’s contract if he didn’t deal well with a newly powerful board. ("What I mean was not supposed to be a comment on Tom in particular, it was just a comment in general," White told me. "It was supposed to be a statement of fact.")

Two questions, both of them still unanswered, overshadowed the meeting and will likely overshadow the Del Mar district for some time.

The first, and most obvious, was why exactly Bishop was booted right there and then. All Board President Annette Easton said, with an apology, was that she couldn’t say.

"I would only consider a decision like this if I really felt that it was in the best interest of helping us as a community move forward," Easton told the room, still brimming two hours in. "You see different sides of the entire picture ... Not all of us have access to the same information."

(Bishop is unpopular among some in the district for having an uncompromising management style, being less-than-upfront on his personal agenda and not tolerating dissenting views, all of which critics say have hindered many district endeavors: Its effort to sell a piece of land to the city of Del Mar, its setting of boundaries for attendance at its eight schools, the process of setting up a Spanish-language program and the management of a nonprofit that supports the Del Mar curriculum, among other things.)

But whatever information Easton was referring to apparently failed to sway the two more Bishop-friendly board members, who voted against buying out Bishop’s contract.

"This is a sad day for me," Trustee Linda Crawford said.

The second question, far more difficult and frightening than the first, was aired in many forms by people on both sides of the Bishop debate, and its importance was underscored by the nearly unbelievable bitterness of the whole affair. Even in Del Mar, where divisive school debate has seemingly risen to a sort of sport (at least among parents), the meeting Feb. 26 was worryingly ugly. And now a recall campaign is brewing for the three board members who pushed Bishop out.

Parent Mary Taylor put it best. The next test that the trustees of the Del Mar Union School District, and their choice for a superintendent, must successfully pass: "What is your plan for getting us through this?"

Ian S. Port is assistant editor of the Rancho Santa Fe Review, Carmel Valley News and Del Mar Village Voice. Contact him at iansmithport@gmail.com. Or send a letter to the editor.


Ian S. Port

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Voice of SD: Del Mar’s Missing Money, Mysterious Politics

Source: http://voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2008/02/19/opinion/01merge021908.txt

By Ian S. Port

Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2008

Sometime in the middle of January, an envelope containing about $8,000 in cash and personal checks disappeared from a drawer at Del Mar Heights Elementary School.

The money was proceeds from a book fair the school held in December to raise money for new library books — and no one knows what happened to it. The locked drawer where it was kept showed no signs of forced entry. The money didn’t turn up in a massive search of the school office.

Days after the envelope was discovered missing, the police were called. They have no leads.

The incident is obviously embarrassing for the staff of the school, members of which admit that they broke with district policy by not keeping the money in the school safe when it wasn’t being counted.

"Mistakes were made," said Heights Principal Wendy Wardlow. "There should have been better oversight."

The errors were magnified by a news story about the missing money appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune. In a short Feb. 8 piece, Wardlow was quoted as being regretful and Superintendent Tom Bishop as disappointed -- with him also noting the amount of the loss as unprecedented.

Everyone acknowledges that losing track of over $8,000 is a pretty big bungle.

But the appearance of a story about the missing funds in the Union-Tribune has raised the suspicions of many in the Del Mar Heights community, who wonder if the story was pushed to the Union-Tribune by someone in the district who might not mind seeing the school embarrassed in the region’s biggest paper.

True or not, such paranoia is commonplace in the district these days. While schools in Del Mar manage to produce some of the highest test scores in San Diego County -- and absolute adoration from many parents -- the politics of education in this affluent and successful community are frequently vicious, vindictive and sometimes nearly violent.

The U-T story raised eyebrows partly because the paper writes barely at all about mid-coastal elementary schools. Besides fluffy features, the only hard news that makes it to print is truly major: bond measures, board elections and major curricular crisis.

Moreover, the story was published before many in the district -- even many of those on staff at Del Mar Heights School -- had heard about the missing money, leaving a very limited pool of potential leakers.

After Superintendent Tom Bishop was informed of the missing funds on Jan. 24, he issued a gag order for everyone who knew of the incident, including staff and the school board.

Two weeks later, the story appeared.

Burglaries, thefts, narcotics violations, vandalism and other crimes are regularly reported at schools in the area, so it’s hard to see why this report would stand out. According to the crime-mapping website Arjis.org, at least five similar crimes were reported at DMUSD schools between November and January. Does the U-T check them all out, or did something else draw the paper’s attention to that January incident at Del Mar Heights?

School board member Katherine White said the circumstances -- the leak of an embarrassing story when only a few knew about it -- "are something."

"I didn’t read about it in the paper when there was a principal drunk in a school event," White said. "And I didn’t read in the paper when a school employee was using drugs on campus. And I don’t read about the principal that screams at his employees. And I don’t read about the other thefts that have happened in the schools this year ... I don’t understand what makes this such a reportable event when those other things I’ve never even been officially told about."

The view of the Heights School as a target of the district administration -- specifically Superintendent Tom Bishop -- is widely (though not universally) held among the school’s parents and staff.

None that I contacted would speak for attribution on the subject, but the story they tell is the same. Critics from all over the district have long said that Bishop does not tolerate disagreement from employees. And Wardlow, the Heights principal, has earned a reputation as a straight-talker.

"He hates Wendy and he hates the Heights and he’s been trying to get rid of her for years," one parent said. "And why is that? Because Wendy speaks what she thinks. She’s not diplomatic."

Bishop told me he was "disappointed" about the missing money. He did not return calls Friday seeking further comment.

The spat between Bishop at the Heights has old origins, according to those who describe it, but the conflict has heightened recently. In 2006, a brand new, three-person school board majority was elected on a message of reform, implicitly criticizing the superintendent and a school board that they said had long given him everything he wanted. Their election came amid a mass evaporation of faith in various divisions of the district, especially in the nonprofit foundation that supports Del Mar classes with private money. Many of the most vocal supporters of the "slate of three" reformers were Heights parents. Two of the new school board members sent their kids to the school.

Since the election, the Superintendent’s professional life has been significantly less predictable. Board meetings are no longer smile-a-thons held to ratify Bishop’s desires. When oddities occur -- and there have been too many to list here -- Bishop is brought into line by his board.

Last year, parents from another DMUSD school nearly erupted into a fistfight over the district’s plan to start a pilot Spanish immersion program, partly because the district didn’t bother to tell parents of its plans until after the decision to go ahead was made. The principal of the school herself learned of the immersion program minutes before the school board voted to approve it. But after parents revolted -- complaining that no one told them what was going on -- the plan had to be canceled.

Two months later, Heights Principal Wardlow appeared in front of the school board asking to start a different Spanish language program at the school. Her proposal for a smaller program was developed entirely by the school staff and had its support.

Despite that adding foreign language education has been a longtime stated goal of the district -- and that the Heights curriculum was an obvious chance to atone for the blundering of the earlier immersion program -- Bishop and an ally on the board rode Wardlow through a two-hour hearing on the proposal, bringing to bear their full arsenal of nitpicking on the principal.

The message was clear: the district can do what it wants, and it might mess things up horribly. But even an obviously competent and heavily supported proposal from the Heights is going to get the toughest scrutiny from the district.

One wound between the Heights and the district goes to the very existence of the school itself. Rumors have persisted for years -- heard by teachers and school board members -- that Bishop has plans to close the Heights, sell the extremely valuable land it sits on, and use the money to build a new district office.

The superintendent always denies this. Of course, Heights parents and staff still find such talk incredibly disturbing. And in other matters, not a lot of love rains down from the district to dissuade parents and staff of the notion that their school is looked upon less than favorably by it.

The very thing that allegedly pits Wardlow against Bishop -- her forthrightness -- is what many parents say they like most about her.

"Wendy Wardlow has all of my tremendous support, as well as everybody in the community that I’ve ever talked to," said parent Ralph DeMarco, who sent five kids through various Del Mar schools, and says he likes Wardlow the best of any principal. When DeMarco heard about the missing $8,107.18 in book fair funds, "I went over there and I said I want to write you a check right now."

With a tone of suspicion that has become all-too-common around Del Mar schools lately, he admitted finding the U-T piece a bit weird.

"Is that somebody’s PR plan there? Why this article like that? Is somebody feeding that for the purpose of their overall agenda?" he asked.

It could be nothing. But in Del Mar these days, you just never know.

Ian S. Port is assistant editor of the Rancho Santa Fe Review, Carmel Valley News and Del Mar Village Voice. Contact him at iansmithport@gmail.com. Or send a letter to the editor.


Ian S. Port