Dee Perry, after failing twice, is suing our school board for a third time. LBUSD has been tentatively granted, for the third time, a motion to dismiss Dee’s lawsuit against the district. These lawsuits cost our district money and time When a disgruntled board member endorses a candidate like Sheri Morgan on their social media, I wonder if we are headed to years and years of more lawsuits ahead if these people get elected? Disgruntled shouldn’t be a platform for running for school board. Dee Perry needs to start being a governance partner, admit she shared confidential information on email and just move on.
Carrie Reynolds
Carrie Reynolds flunks Civics 101
Carrie Reynolds (“Govern More, Sue less” Indy, Sept. 18) objects to costs of Dee Perry’s lawsuit, seeking equal civil rights denied by a disgruntled Superintendent and School Board lawyer profiting handsomely by instigating publicly funded litigation. Yet, we heard no fiscal restraint noises from Carrie in recent years when the Board – relying on bad legal advice from the same lawyer – paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees in cases decided against LBUSD by state courts.
Indeed, litigation costs had increased 300% before Perry brought her low budget case seeking protection of her constituents’ right to equal representation on the Board. Perry had no choice after the Superintendent and his lawyer devised a scheme to deny Perry the rights and powers of her seat on the board at the discretion of other Board members.
As someone who knows this case and the juridical philosophy of Justice Ginsburg, there is little room for doubt RGB would have supported Perry’s decision the public interest was served by taking her claim and cause to the court. RBG believed courts are a necessary cost of governance and independent judicial oversight is imperative, especially when a woman twice elected to play a leadership role stands up to officious bureaucrats contriving to curtail the rights of an “uppity” woman who dared to challenge their power and privilege.
Indeed, Reynolds agrees that an “Attorney Client Privilege” stamp nullifies the right under state law for an elected School Board member to release information otherwise “confidential” in order to challenge the “propriety and legality” of secrecy imposed in any closed meeting. In doing so, Reynolds takes sides with the misuse of secrecy powers and abusive threats in a letter to an elected Board member who challenged secrecy practices as authorized under
CA Gov. Code Sec. 54963(e)(2).
Reynolds then misleads Indy readers claiming the court’s dismissal of her case means Perry violated the confidentiality prohibition in Sec. 54963(a)(1). On that basis, Reynolds demands Perry confess to false accusation, and promise to be a good “governance partner” with the Superintendent and Board.
This is simple intellectual dishonesty, because Carrie is too smart not to know the court dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, not a finding of law and fact. After showing concern for her plight by giving her three bites at the apple, the court understandably though disappointingly rationalized dismissal, but only after expiration of the Board resolution that triggered the case made the central legal issue moot.
Accordingly, the court cut the legal case loose, and left voters to decide the political issues. That is the difference between what Reynolds wrote and the truth.
Howard Hills