Oh, are those the reasons?

For those who have followed the D11 recall effort against Sandy Shakes and Eric Christen, it is very apparent that the "reasons" for the effort as stated by the Chaos committee have changed continuously throughout the process. Most who are paying attention understand that this is simply a continuation of the 2005 elections and it is simply about getting power back into the hands of the liberal elite who have always run D11.

The email below came from a D11 resident who had asked Ann Oatman-Gardner, the lead hit man for Chaos, if Chaos would do the D11 taxpayers a $300,000 favor by calling off this recall. Here is Oatman-Gardner's reply:

From: Annodan@aol.com [mail to:Annodan@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 12:54 PM
To: Subject: [Norton AntiSpam]
Re: Stop the recall
, thank you for sharing your concern about the recall and the expense. We also would prefer that the expense to the district be avoided. When we started this recall, we were horrified by the blatant waste of taxpayer dollars when they fired Dr. Thomas. All they would have had to do is give her an evaluation, hold her to some agreed upon outcomes and if she didn't produce those, they could have let her go without the pay out of her contract, but they were irresponsible enough to just fire her because of their personal agendas. Then they went ahead and voted to pay Eric Christen's attorney's fees even though the hiring of the attorney by Mr. Christen was due to his own paranoia about being reprimanded, something that did not stop him at all from serving as a board member, but which used $4,000 of the Districts money. He then went ahead last week and did the exact same thing he was reprimanded for, sending out his opinions on District letterhead. We don't think he has learned a thing, nor will change his behavior. Then they voted to pay out $250,000 (more than the cost of the recall election if done by mail) for a site based management consultant, even though Ms. Mann was willing to move in that direction but with more care and more oversite, starting with $50,000. We said when we started the recall that we were concerned about what they would do next and were not willing to wait to see what else they would waste and that has not changed. We even acknowledged at the beginning that the District would have had to pay anywhere from $80,000 to $100,000 for the election (if we had been on the November ballot, which we tried to get to) . Was that not a concern for you then? They themselves can still vote for the least cost election of $187,000 All Mail ballot at this Wednesday's board meeting or better yet, they could resign by 5 pm on Monday. Saving all the money, and since they only have a year left on their term they would not be missing much. Have you asked Mr. Christen and Ms. Shakes to resign or at least do the least cost election of $187,000? Unfortunately, your request to us comes too late. We have no authority to pull this back now that the 15,000 petitions signatures for each candidate have been certified by the clerk and recorder. It would have been difficult for the three of us to have made the request after 400 people spent hours gathering and over 19,000 people agreed we needed to do this. Good luck in taking the only avenue left, asking them to resign.
Annie

Let's look at the arguments that Annie makes to justify her wasting of D11 tax dollars.

When we started this recall, we were horrified by the blatant waste of taxpayer dollars when they fired Dr. Thomas.
The "waste of taxpayer dollars" of which Annie speaks is the Golden Parachute that was attached to Thomas's contract by Karen Teja and David Linebaugh, 2 ex-D11 Board members who negotiated Thomas's contract with her. This Golden Parachute was supported by some of the very members of Chaos who now criticize the fact that Thomas received this amount of money. Eric Christen did not vote for the huge giveaway; neither did Willie Breazell or I vote for this. We strongly opposed this contract. Sandy Shakes did vote for the contract, but she has openly admitted that she made a mistake in that regard. Mary Wierman, Karen Teja, and Dave Linebaugh are responsible for the Golden Parachute, yet Annie and her crowd have actually welcomed these people into Chaos. The Golden Parachute was a political stunt using D11 tax money. The good news is that although the original parachute was $750,000, we were able to trim away approximately $330,000. Thomas was reportedly "fuming" in her office after that Board vote. No one from Chaos raised any objections when the vote was taken by the old board to give Thomas her Golden Parachute.

All they would have had to do is give her an evaluation, hold her to some agreed upon outcomes and if she didn't produce those, they could have let her go without the pay out of her contract, but they were irresponsible enough to just fire her because of their personal agendas.

The following is from a statement made by Thomas at a Board meeting on March 8, 2005, in response to the possibility of receiving an evaluation with "outcomes," as Annie suggested:

Fourth, given the significant challenges identified above, I am very concerned that the Board has not taken the time to make sure that the necessary prerequisites to any productive and meaningful performance assessment process were in place before implementing the current process. To be sure, the Board and superintendent should enter into frequent informal dialogs about how things are proceeding in the district. And, the current process began as just such an informal process. However, members of the former Board who continue to serve on the current Board seem to have turned that informal process into a high-stakes, formal one, having decided as early as December that my performance was entirely or mostly unsatisfactory and worthy of something as drastic as a remediation plan. The evaluation summary that has been presented to me is reflective of the intent of those Board members to rate my performance as unsatisfactory very early on, notwithstanding the failure to lay a proper foundation for such a determination.

Thomas made it very clear that she was not willing to accept a remediation plan, which is simply a list of expected actions and outcomes. For those who continue to say that we waited "too long" to begin the evaluation process, even Thomas admitted that the effort to provide her feedback began in December. The following is an email sent by Sandy Shakes to John Gudvangen on December 3rd, 2005

John,

Craig and I had spoken about an informal 6 month discussion with Dr. Thomas prior to the board election of officers. Craig and I based our discussion upon past practices that the president and vice president would give feedback to the superintendent as far as performance. I am not trying to step on your turf or be"controlling". We owe it to the superintendent to give feedback on performance based upon the performance criteria. Dr. Thomas is aware of the evaluation format and the content. The performance evaluation was developed and used last year with Dr. Ridder before he left.

Of course, we would get input from current BOE members, Willie and Eric and contact David, Mary and Karen to see if they have specifics they would like to include before we meet with Dr. Thomas. The final evaluation is the input from the entire board. At the present time, I am certain that the only valid and constructive input will come from the board members that have served with Dr. Thomas for more that a few days.

I am sure you want the new board to have data and information so that our decisions are based on data over an entire year and not just the last 6 months of her contract. However, if you feel that Dr. Thomas should not have any feedback and she only hears from the board at her yearly review then that is something that the entire board may want to have some input on.

Sandy Shakes

Gudvangen's response to this email was given to the entire Board verbally. He said, "I will never allow Craig and Sandy to do this evaluation." As can be seen by the email, it was never suggested that the eval be done by only 2 people.

As to Thomas's claim that the BOE had laid no foundation to even give her an evaluation, she contradicts herself from a letter dated October 10, 2005, addressed to Sandy Shakes, in which she said:

Dear President Shakes,

On or about September 15, 2005, we discussed the format for the Superintendent's 2005-06 performance evaluation. At that time, I indicated that it was my understanding that School District 11 had adopted a consistent performance evaluation format for all employees - including the Superintendent - a copy of which has been provided to me by the District's Human Resources office.

...Accordingly, it seemed appropriate that the Board of Education and I use the already-developed format, a copy of which is enclosed.

Despite Thomas's public claims, Thomas agreed to an evaluation format back in September 2005.

Thomas had demanded that every board action concerning her evaluation be done in public, even though her contract called for an evaluation to be conducted in a private Executive Session. There is no doubt that Thomas made these demands to turn her evaluation into a political circus. The following is an email sent out by Thomas and Chaos supporter Lois Fornander, one of the D11 elitists who oppose the education of poor and minority children. Gudvangen and Thomas asked Fornander to send this email to supporters before the meeting was even made publicly known:

Thomas had no intention of allowing the BOE to conduct an orderly evaluation process.

An important point to note with regards to the Thomas contract is that it does not allow for performance, or lack of performance, to be a reason for her to be terminated for "cause." This egregious contract was designed to protect Thomas regardless of her lack of competence, and Annie knows that. The only area where performance could be a factor, based on the contract, was in the area of bonus pay. (Note to other Boards: never allow an ex-attorney CEO to negotiate a contract for him/herself with his/her old employer who happens to be the law firm that should be representing you).

On September 27th, Willie Breazell publicly stated that he was the Board member who pushed to give Thomas her Golden Parachute without a fight. Christen and Shakes did not push for this capitulation, so Breazell pointed out that Chaos had targeted the wrong people in its recall effort. Some of us would have been willing to fire Thomas without giving her the money, and Breazell was probably correct in assuming that Thomas would sue the District and end up costing the taxpayers even more than $400,000. This was about money for her, not kids.

Then they went ahead and voted to pay Eric Christen's attorney's fees even though the hiring of the attorney by Mr. Christen was due to his own paranoia about being reprimanded, something that did not stop him at all from serving as a board member, but which used $4,000 of the Districts money.

Christen properly asked the Board to reimburse him for defending himself against something that Shakes admits was a political stunt. Christen followed Board procedures. Karen Teja, however, received reimbursement for her personal legal expenses without asking Board permission. Annie and her cronies never complained about that. Below are 2 of Teja's legal billings, for which she charged the taxpayers of D11:

The April bill was for the important purpose of finding out if Christen was allowed to say things at Board meetings that Teja might find objectionable. The June bill was for Teja to fight the possibility of the Board voting to allow District funds to be used to help poor and minority children. Teja did not use D11 law firm HRO because she "did not trust them," or so she told Shakes.

When called on this abuse of D11 funds, Teja publicly stated that she followed policy by asking then superintendent Norm Ridder for permission to fund a private attorney. Unfortunately for Teja, no such policy exists, as confirmed in an email exchange between myself and D11 policy representative Deb Key:

----- Original Message ----- From: KEY, DEB To: RIDDER, NORMAN ; 'craigcox@adelphia.net' Cc: David Linebaugh (E-mail) ; Eric Christen (E-mail) ; Karen Teja (E-mail) ; Mary Wierman (E-mail) ; Sandra Shakes (E-mail) ; Sandy Shakes (E-mail) ; Willie Breazell (E-mail) ; GUSTAFSON, GLENN ; NALESKI, ELAINE ; BISHOP, TERRY ; THURMAN, MARY E. ; PATTON, SANDRA ; GIDDENS, GWENDOLYN B. Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 8:27 AM

Subject: Information requested

Director Cox, Request: The policy that Teja referred to last night where it states that Board members ask the superintendent for permission to use someone other than HRO. Response: The BOE policy that deals with Board Members seeking approval to contact attorneys is BDG. For your reference I have attached policy BDG. Deb Key

-----Original Message-----From: Craig Cox [mailto:craigcox@adelphia.net]

Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 12:14 PMTo: KEY, DEBSubject:

Re: Information requested
Deb,

Thanks. I am familiar with BDG, and it does not say anything close to what Teja pretended, but that is not your problem. Thanks.

Craig

From: KEY, DEB

Craig, you are correct. Thanks for not shooting the messenger. Deb

If this use of D11 funds to reimburse BOE members is a recallable offense, Annie and her minions missed more than 1 opportunity to hold Teja accountable.

Then they voted to pay out $250,000 (more than the cost of the recall election if done by mail) for a site based management consultant,

This claim is true, but rather silly. The D11 Board that includes Hasling, Mann, and Gudvangen, voted to pay more than $800,000 for consultants to assist the District with its construction projects. These contracts extend for as many years as does the site based consultant. Further, Annie's liberal friends Teja, Wierman, and Lyman Kaiser, all contributors to the Chaos effort, voted for an open-ended contract with Jim Shipley & Associates to implement CQI. The following is the CQI budget for one year:

In one year, D11 spent nearly $1 million for the implementation of CQI. As this budget document shows, the cost of the consultant alone (Jim Shipley & Associates) was $350,000 for one year. The consulting costs were even higher when CQI was initially adopted prior to 2003. Again, if Annie was really worried about fiscal accountability, she missed a big one. All this to teach teachers how to hold their students accountable for their work.

The fact of the matter is that D11 spends millions of dollars each year on contracts. The reason that the site based contract is even an issue is because Annie and her liberal allies on the Board oppose site based budgeting. They prefer to have the school money controlled by a large and bulky administration rather than the school staffs.

Is this really a recallable crime? All 7 current Board members ran on the promise of a site based management model for the District. This money is being spent in a manner that will directly affect the performance of our schools in a positive manner. Annie, of course, does not care about the performance of our schools.

Annie no longer tries to defend the lackluster performance of Thomas in her email. That is a good thing. That performance is worth exploring closer, as are the evaluations that each of the Board members gave Thomas.