What Parents Should Know About School Bonds And Our LAUSD Citizens’ Oversight Committee:
26 Monday May 2014
Tags
American Institute of Architects, BOC, Bond Oversight Committee, Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee, LAUSD, Stuart Magruder, Superintendent Deasy
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There is a political brouhaha going on right now that really deserves your attention. Your attention as a parent, as a taxpayer, as a citizen.
It involves a pretty obscure committee known as the “Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee” (BOC: www.laschools.org/bond) – I know, I’d never heard of it until recently either.
Turns out all that money we as tax payers empower agencies to borrow as “bonds” for a specific purpose or project – a whole endeavor with terms I don’t understand well – that money needs “watchdogging” because just mandating it happen doesn’t say how it will happen, or by whom, etc. Such appropriations become a situation ripe for abuse, to which alert minds have been thinking about and attending the danger for a good long while.
For example there is a whole League of Bond Oversight Committees. This tactic of funding specific projects is common enough and involves large enough sums of money, overseen by rank enough novices that all across the state Oversight Committees have been formed to watch the process and these themselves end up needing instruction. Check it out: http://www.calboc.org/ .
And right now we have a Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee in LA that is under attack. It is supposed to be an independent task force with appointees from various interest groups charged with scrutinizing the distribution of funds mandated by the taxpayers specifically for the purpose of funding school construction and infrastructure. Our Board of Education ensures that the appointees to this committee made by various special interest groups are fit to serve (as in not, say, felons or pedophiles), but they are not to influence the selection of the representative. That is the purview of the designated special interests representatives that compose the committee (e.g., PTA, trades groups, architects, “parents”, etc). You can read about the composition of this committee of constituents in this great summary blog posting by parent and PTSA representative Scott Folsom: http://4lakids.blogspot.com/2014/05/we-trust-that-board-of-education.html . It includes several good links to recent press articles for more information.
To me, right now, the critical issue is independent oversight and partisan backroom politicking. Personally I feel our Board of Education is being manipulated by their own employee, their schools superintendent, for ulterior political ends. I feel this removes one of the last avenues of commentary that we parent-citizens had available to us.
I know you won’t just take my word on this; I hope you will research this issue yourself. You can even watch the Board’s action directly, here: http://audio3.lausd.k12.ca.us/cgi-bin/qt-dir-audio.pl?Reg_Bd_Mtg//2014regbdmtg/ –>click on 05-20-14RegBdCS at the bottom of the page. For astute, if partisan editorializing and commenting on the matter, please read former Undersecretary of Education, Dr. Diane Ravitch’s blog: http://dianeravitch.net/2014/05/26/lausd-removes-critic-of-ipad-mess-from-oversight-committee/ . For further excellent, though likewise partisan information see the Facebook page Repairs Not IPads: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Repairs-Not-IPads/228827333958584 .
After reviewing the evidence if you agree with me that we citizens are being marginalized by political forces that wish simply to silence reflection, I hope you will join me in signing this petition to reinstate the American Institute of Architect’s nominee for the Citizen’s Bond Oversight Committee, fellow westside LAUSD parent Stuart Magruder: http://k12newsnetwork.com/blog/2014/05/23/breaking-american-institute-of-architects-los-angeles-resubmits-stuart-magruder-appointment-to-lausd-bond-oversight-committee/
SIGN THE PETITION TO REINSTATE BOC AIA APPOINTEE MAGRUDER!
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https://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/reappoint-lausd-bond-oversight-committee-citizen-member-stewart-magruder-as-a-watchdog
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Thank you!
2 Comments
June 2, 2014 at 10:49 am
Your Scarlet Majesty:
Your wisdom abounds, all those obsequies said of James (I or VI, depending on who’s doing the counting) in his version of the Bible are even more true of your royal personage.
Thank you for labeling the LAUSD Bond Oversight Committee as obscure. My twelve years service thereon – keeping the developers, profiteers and Tony, Mayor of Los Angeles at bay while we built 130 new schools and repaired and modernized thousands of others has made me self important – and it is good for all of us to be reminded of our place. The background noise the cosmologists hear at the beginning of Spacetime is not the hum of the universe revolving around us.
If I may be so bold to correct your single error: Felony and/or pedophilia are NOT disqualifiers for service on the Oversight Committee. The only cause for disqualification by the Board would be employment by the district or being a consultant, contractor or vendor thereto.
No one has accused Mr. Magruder of felony, pedophilia or working for the District; he is accused of being a meddlesome architect and stating opinions not in agreement with a single boardmember.
And, as she is not of the blood royal and thereby blessed with the divine right, it is she that is wrong.
June 2, 2014 at 1:59 pm
:)
Mr Folsom (Fulsome?), Believe it or not, the moniker “obscure” if not a compliment, is definitely a benefit in some sense. Look what’s happened in stepping into the limelight just a smidge. If your committee were truly obscure this baseless slander and bullying might be made to stick. But I have faith in our electorate to awaken, if slowly, to this erosion of our democratic entitlement. We have a need as citizens, to the sort of selfless, voluntary labor you and your colleagues have invested in the rest of us to the tune of thousands of hours (more?).
Thank you for your stupendous efforts in representing us and letting the rest of us know about it. Your blog (4LAKids) is the most information-packed homage to children, education and democracy out there.
So if your committee remains “obscure” it is through no lack of your own, or even your colleagues’ efforts. And it is not even clear that otherwise is better: ‘be careful for what you wish’, as they say!
Perhaps a better description is “neglected”. We citizens have neglected to heed your function as a finger-in-the-dyke protection against those who might have untoward designs on the public purse. Surely the critical functioning of the BOC makes it not obscure by definition. It is only apathy that relegates it to such an unkind corner.
Thank you for all that you do!