From: Richard Michael

Date: August 13, 2020

Subject: Election Consolidation Requests - Fraudulent Certifications of Resolutions

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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
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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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