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MIME-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2020 12:09:44 -0700 Bcc: wilshirelawyers@msn.com Message-ID: <CACRP_YYFFQA5oaOqTmMthtfxTQCdVfA6YY98++o=fxjB69pffA@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Election Consolidation Requests - Fraudulent Certifications of Resolutions From: Richard Michael <walnutwatchdogs+bbb@gmail.com> To: executiveoffice@bos.lacounty.gov, firstdistrict@bos.lacounty.gov, seconddistrict@bos.lacounty.gov, sheila@bos.lacounty.gov, fourthdistrict@bos.lacounty.gov, kathryn@bos.lacounty.gov Cc: dlogan@rrcc.lacounty.gov, aolvera@rrcc.lacounty.gov, ayochelson@da.lacounty.gov Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Election Consolidation Requests - Fraudulent Resolution Certifications This letter regards two potential school bond measures proposed for the November election. 1. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) 2. Bassett Unified School District (BUSD) I request that this letter be presented to the Supervisors in the materials prepared before the meeting at which these consolidation requests will be acted upon. Summary Both certifications falsely claim that public notice of the meeting was posted on the district's web site as required by law. I request that the Executive Officer or one of the Supervisors pull these items from the agenda to investigate the fraudulent certifications or not take any action as described below. Ultimately, the facts are indisputable. Notice for the meetings was not posted as required by law and the actions of those districts are voidable. Because the districts waited until the last minute to sneak the measures past the public, there is no time to correct the lack of notice with a new meeting. The deadline for filing measures passed on August 7, 2020. The Board of Supervisors must reject the requests for consolidation based on fraudulent certifications. Registrar The Registrar, only one day before the argument deadline (August 14), has yet to post any information about local measures on its web site. Based on a preliminary list obtained from the Election Planning Department on August 8, both LAUSD and BUSD have submitted bond measures and neither have been consolidated by the Supervisors. I am still waiting for an answer to my request from the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors, made August 10 at 8:36 AM, as to when the resolutions are scheduled to be on the Board's agenda for action. In both cases, the certifications claim that notice was posted on the district's web site. In both cases that claim is false. Evidence Archive.org (The Way Back Machine) preserves public web pages in the exact state as they appeared at the time the page was archived. Each separate archive is identified by a URL that contains a date and stamp for the archive. The date and time stamp is based on Greenwich Mean Time. 1. Los Angeles Unified The district's web page that purports to provide the entirety of its board's meeting information was archived on August 1 (before meeting), August 3 (before meeting), and August 4 (after meeting). It was also archived on August 11 as explained separately. The archived pages speak for themselves. The page did not provide any notice of the August 4th meeting days before the meeting and after the meeting. http://web.archive.org/web/20200801231220/https://achieve.lausd.net/domain/4 http://web.archive.org/web/20200801225800/https://boe.lausd.net/LAUSDBdMtgAgendas http://web.archive.org/web/20200803164423/https://boe.lausd.net/LAUSDBdMtgAgendas http://web.archive.org/web/20200804173034/https://boe.lausd.net/LAUSDBdMtgAgendas The claim on the certification is therefore false. 2. Bassett Unified I list BUSD because the preliminary list of local measures from the registrar lists it as a potential measure. Because there was no meeting agenda posted and there is still no meeting agenda posted, I do not have the certification, usually by the secretary (superintendent) or clerk of the governing board. Having reviewed hundreds of bond resolutions, however, I know that the certification is boiler-plate that is added to all election orders. Therefore, I presume that such a certificate has been filed by BUSD with both the registrar and the Supervisors. Although the meeting schedule appears on the archived page, there is no meeting posted beyond the meeting of July 20, 2020. There is no indication of whether or not the scheduled meetings for July 28, 2020 or August 11, 2020 were held and no agenda for either were posted. This archive was the first archive for the agenda page. http://web.archive.org/web/20200813171252/https://bassett.agendaonline.net/public/agency.aspx If a certification exists for the BUSD bond measure, its claim that notice was posted as required by law is false. Criminal Complaint A criminal complaint was filed with Alan Yochelson, HDDA (and others) of the Public Integrity section on August 9, 2020 at 9:49 AM. Magically, between that time and the time that Mr. Yochelson responded on the afternoon of August 10, the meeting agendas page for LAUSD was changed. There were numerous changes to the page. Meetings were added. Links for previous meetings were added. I am continuing to press Mr. Yochelson to prosecute the criminal meeting act violation and the voiding of the agenda item that is the subject of the resolution sent to the Supervisors. This is the page archived subsequent to Mr. Yochelson's initial reply to the complaint. http://web.archive.org/web/20200811152853/https://boe.lausd.net/LAUSDBdMtgAgendas If you believe in coincidences, then you won't consider it odd that the LAUSD agendas page changed only after Mr. Yochelson received a complaint. I don't believe in coincidences. In replying to Mr. Yochelson, I pointed out that his reliance on the state of the LAUSD agenda page on August 10, 2020 was without basis. The only period of time that matters is before the meeting. There was no notice of the August 4, 2020 posted on the LAUSD agendas page from at least July 31, 2020 through August 9, 2020 when I double-checked just prior to sending the complaint to Mr. Yochelson. Executive Office Apparently, there is an entire Agenda Preparation Section (APS) that taxpayers are paying for. I made a request on August 10, 2020 at 9:49 AM for the date of the meeting at which remaining election consolidation requests would be on the agenda. Specifically, I was asking about the request from LAUSD. I talked to a person from the APS. I was told that the registrar is the person I should talk to. It was like I was talking to someone who didn't have a clue what I was talking about, despite dozens of the 54 local measure consolidation being routed through the Supervisors over the last two months. It was like listening to the apocryphal blind man describing an elephant. I told both persons about the falsified certification and my purpose.. Since this is an election matter and time is of the essence, my sense is that this may not be incompetence, but a policy decision to drag things out until it is past the time that effective action could be taken. I'm not happy. Action Requested The Supervisors can obviate the need for a court order requiring these measures be removed from the ballot by denying the request for consolidation. That would be the least wasteful of the options available to the county. It would also save LAUSD and BUSD taxpayers millions of dollars. Because those millions of dollars would flow from LAUSD and BUSD to the county treasury, a vote of the Supervisors to consolidate the election may be a conflict of interest under the Political Reform Act, as the county has a huge financial stake in receiving money for running elections. If all Supervisors were to recuse themselves from the action, then it would fail, without a vote. The effective result would be the same as a vote to deny the request for consolidation. A timely heads up to the registrar could save that department a lot of time and money preparing for elections that should not be on the ballot in November. Anyone can examine the archived agenda pages and determine that the certifications are fraudulent. -- Richard Michael California School Bonds Clearinghouse http://www.bigbadbonds*com/ 909-378-5401 (7 days a week, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Pacific) @Follow http://twitter/bigbadbonds
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