||| FROM JOHN NANCE and LISA DES JARDINS |||
Before voting, everyone should be aware of some facts and a pattern of behavior inherent in Kari McVeigh, as evidenced by the following lawsuit and news article related to TWO back-to-back employment departures from TWO DIFFERENT school districts.
First, the legal decision cited below is from an appeal of a lawsuit that was filed against the BEVERLY HILLS UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT where Kari McVeigh was employed as superintendent and turned a blind eye to the actions of Christianson, as planning Director of the school system. Christensen’s compensation went from 113,000 a year to millions of dollars after she managed to convince the district that she could perform the same duties acting as an independent contractor through her wholly owned LLC.
Payments to Christensen‘s LLC, Strategic LLC became out of control to the tune of millions of dollars, particularly after Christensen convinced McVeigh and the school board to pass a $300 million dollar bond. When the district tried to terminate her, she sued and won even more money from the school district.
The trial court awarded Strategic $4,310,660 in prejudgment interest pursuant to Civil Code section 3287, subdivision (b), and $2.3 million contractual attorney fees. The total judgment is $20,321,169. It was overturned on appeal after McVeigh “retired,”
essentially walking away from the problem in 2008, and leaving the district with the deficit, the fallout, and stress of an appeal for 10 years, as the appeal wasn’t decided until 2018.
This, voters, is from a legal record, not a news article. The upsetting aspect of this legal record and action is that there was little or no supervision on McVeigh’s watch. That is not the type of oversight, control, and husbanding of resources that we want for our county.
Anyone in a fiduciary role be it as superintendent of a school district or County Council must not have even the appearance of impropriety. This lack of oversight, whether complicit or not is unacceptable in the position of County Council.
Going forward, after leaving BEVERLY HILLS UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT in 2008, she became employed as superintendent of the NEW HAVEN UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT in December 2008, where she remained contentiously until 2014.
Following is an excerpt from an article posted in the Mercury News on June 5, 2013:
“By CHRIS DE BENEDETTI | Bay Area News Group, Mercury News
PUBLISHED: June 5, 2013 at 4:15 a.m.
UNION CITY — New Haven Unified’s superintendent of schools has announced she is leaving the district, saying her differences with the school board over recent management choices fueled her decision.
Kari McVeigh, the district’s superintendent since December 2008, will step down on Nov. 30, using about six weeks of vacation until she formally retires on Jan. 14, 2014.
“I am proud of the progress that our district has made in the past four-and-a-half years,” she said in a statement released Wednesday.
“But it has become painfully obvious to me that the board and I have irreconcilable differences about the board’s insistence on injecting itself into management decisions.”
In this case, it seems she couldn’t abide by mandates set by the School Board (her bosses), choosing instead to leave, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Do we really want this type of financial and personnel maneuvering in our San Juan County Council?
Sources:
www.caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-court-of-appeal/1895679.html
www.mercurynews.com/2013/06/05/new-haven-superintendent-kari-mcveigh-leaving-school-district-citing-differences-with-board/
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Really? John Nance and Lisa Des Jardin? They are PBS Newshour commentators. I find it difficult to believe they have the time to be interested in San Juan County elections. Does no one else find names of the authors of this article suspicious???
The “authors” surely did not write this letter. Very, very odd.
My husband, John Nance and I live and vote in Friday Harbor. I have lived and worked here for 34 years; raised my children here, and now have 8 grandchildren all living in Friday Harbor. I served as Executive Secretary to the Superintendent of San Juan Island School District for 5 years, Public Hearings Specialist to the San Juan County Council for 3 years, and Office Manager for SJC Community Development & Planning for 11 years. John is a lawyer, an author, a speaker, and the ABC News Aviation Analyst.
Is an apology in order for the mix-up ? “These writers criticizing my candidate have funny names, so … I will embarrass myself.” Thank you John and Lisa for expressing your well-reasoned opinions in connection with a local county council election . I have read the materials you’ve cited and while I personally remain inclined to vote for Kari McVeigh, I am grateful for your comments and respect your past professional endeavors and your contributions to San Juan county. C’mon Joyce and Elanor, take the inter-island and offer these guys a sumptuous lunch ! I’m sure they will accept, then maybe join you in writing another letter to the Orcasonian about lessons learned. Fantasy Island ?
I live on Orcas and genuinely was puzzled about the names. Just naive enough to think that people I saw on TV wouldn’t live here. My comment wasn’t intended to support one candidate over the other. Just to question the authorship. If I offended, I’m sorry.