||| FROM AMANDA AZOUS |||
I’ve been irked of late by the claims of Stephanie O’Day that she is protecting islanders and is more local and knowledgeable about our island challenges.
Having known of her through my career as an environmental engineer and scientist in San Juan County, the Stephanie O’Day I’ve known in the community and in the papers is an attorney that routinely fought against state and local land use laws meant to protect our delicate island ecosystems. How is that protecting our communities and quality of life?
Often campaign donations are used as a surrogate for a candidate’s electabilityand to understand who wants them in office. Are they supported by local residents, middle class families or outside wealthy investors looking to ride a prosperity wave or gain favor with local officials? Fortunately, we live in a world where election donation statistics are still freely available. Here are a few you may want to think about.
As of September 26 Kari McVeigh had 140 campaign contributors for a total election fund of $27,607. County registered voters accounted for 88% of those contributing to McVeigh’s election and for 83% of her campaign fund.
In contrast O’Day had 81 campaign contributors and had raised well over double McVeigh totaling $62,747. Of this, County registered voters had contributed only 46% of O’Day’s campaign fund. Not even half.
It is also telling that 37 contributors, which is 46% of O’Days contributors, gave $1000 or more. McVeigh had only eight such contributors. Moreover, the average contribution to McVeigh was only $197 versus $784 for O’Day. Do we really want wealthy contributors that are not registered to vote in our county deciding the results of our election?
You may ask yourself who’s really protecting the “Island Way of Life.” Who is representing islanders in this election and who should islanders trust?
All statistics are sourced from the Public Disclosure Commission website and San Juan County’s Official Voter Registry.
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Worse than irksome is this … Kari is not the one to be trusted, especially for this office.
Think Twice …
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:
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/ca-court-of-appeal/1895679.html
https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/06/05/new-haven-superintendent-kari-mcveigh-leaving-school-district-citing-differences-with-board/
As Stephanie’s campaign Treasurer, I can state truthfully that all but $100 of her donations came from San Juan County property owners, clearly people can own property in more than one location. As San Juan County property owners, they have a vested interest in local politics.