Don't Be Fooled Or Distracted: Focus To Remain On The Facts

Dear Community Members:

Over the course of the last week, we have been subjected to ridiculous personal attacks and the false accusations by two members of our school board, Cindy Warren and Cynthia Lane, and the husband of a school board member, Jeff Warren. Up until now, we have refrained from addressing these attacks because, first and foremost, THEY HAVE NO MERIT. However, due to the fact that the Warrens have engaged in a barrage of public statements which are meant to defame and discredit us, and are based on nothing more than the desire to distract our community from the real issues at hand, we now feel the need to respond to these outrageous and completely baseless allegations. Therefore, we are now providing the facts of what actually took place last week regarding our meeting at the Warrens’ house. The facts are as follows:

About two weeks ago, we discovered some troubling information about the PARS retirement plan offered to Superintendent Gordon and Jim Zoll. Specifically, we discovered that the Board neither publicly discussed nor properly authorized their inclusion into the PARS plan (potential Brown Act violation), that the Board failed to provide an accurate analysis of the cost of adding Gordon and Zoll to the plan (their inclusion decreased the total savings to the district), and that, according to California law, the PARS plan for Gordon and Zoll may be void since Gordon would financially benefit from the very plan that he negotiated and signed. Because of this, there are serious questions as to whether Gordon and Zoll are entitled to their combined $327,727 retirement benefit.

We requested a copy of the PARS plan from the school district numerous (at least 8) times over several weeks and were refused. It was not until we requested the PARS plan in a meeting on June 15th with several other individuals, including Cindy Warren and Cynthia Lane, that the district finally gave us a copy. We spent countless hours researching and investigating every aspect of this situation. It was critical to us that we come forward with this information only if we were certain that our statements were factually and legally correct. We came to the conclusion that our suspicions were valid and our legal position was solid. We then decided to do what we thought was the right thing: share this information with the school board members. We thought that they needed to know this information and we felt that blind siding them at the public meeting the following day would be wrong.

When we made the decision to meet with the board members, we realized that we could only meet with 2 at a time under the provisions of the Brown Act. We decided to contact them and set up a meeting in a neutral, private place. We did not think that it would be wise to go over our findings in a crowded coffee shop in a small town. When Cindy Warren said she was not comfortable with our meeting place, Kevin Alfaro suggested her house and she agreed.

Soon after our meeting with Cindy Warren and Cynthia Lane began, Jeff Warren walked in and joined us. We sat down with the three of them and went through the memo that we had prepared setting forth what we had discovered about the PARS plan. We were professional and calm in our delivery of this information. At the end of the memo, we listed 4 requests of the board, one of which was that they resign due to their lack of oversight in this matter. After we finished reading the memo with them, we all discussed some of the details regarding the financial data in the memo and we asked them whether they had obtained a legal opinion regarding including Gordon and Zoll in the PARS plan. We also clearly and in no uncertain terms explained that we would be making this information public, but that we wanted to give them a heads up about it and discuss it with them as a courtesy. Cindy Warren at one point made a statement that “WHY SHOULD WE RESIGN IF THIS IS GOING TO COME OUT ANYWAY?” At another point, Cynthia Lane stated “IF WE RESIGN, THEN YOU WON’T TAKE THIS TO THE DA?” To which we responded “WE ARE DEFINITELY TAKING THIS TO THE DA. IT’S COMING OUT.” The memo itself states that a copy will be sent to the DA, the newspapers, and various other public officials. This was always our intention.

Cynthia Lane, Cindy Warren and Jeff Warren have publicly claimed that they were intimidated, threatened and extorted at this meeting. We never made any threats or intimidated anyone during this meeting. If anyone in the room felt intimidated or threatened by us then why, after we finished our discussion, were we brought into their library to look at family photos?

These allegations were made to distract our community from the issues that we raised in our thoroughly documented and researched memo. It was a political maneuver with no basis in truth. What is particularly disturbing about these allegations is their intended affect on our community. A group of concerned parents went to these board members with troubling information they discovered regarding the board's implementation of the PARS retirement plan. Instead of addressing these concerns, these board members made baseless criminal allegations against us and used the regular board meeting to discredit and falsely accuse us of wrongdoing. Their inexcusable actions will now have a chilling effect on the First Amendment freedom of speech rights of our entire community. Who will be brave enough to speak out to these elected officials with the threat of criminal retaliation looming overhead? Freedom of speech is one of our most basic constitutional rights. This attack on that right should be alarming to everyone.

It is disappointing to us that Cindy & Jeff Warren and Cynthia Lane have turned to these mean spirited personal attacks, but you can be certain we will not do the same. We intend to continue to focus on solely the issues. We will not desert our high ethical and moral standards as we continue to uphold the truth.

If you would like to review a copy of our memo on the PARS plan, you can find it on our blog: citizensforqualityed.blogspot.com We also would encourage you to review the Office of the Attorney General's website on this point. http://ag.ca.gov/ethics/accessible/contract.php. This link will take you to the Ethics Orientation for State Officials which provides a practical explanation of the law with examples.

Kevin Alfaro
Jeanne DeVincenzi
Sharon Harris
Kathy Zelazny