The Santa Ana Unified School District and the Long Beach Unified School District have much in common, including lame school boards and corrupt school administrations and teachers unions.
For awhile they had even more in common in the form of now-retired Santa Ana teacher David Barton. He was the head of the Santa Ana Educators Association for some time. He also is a board member at Long Beach Unified.
And now Barton is embroiled in a haze of union corruption that has led to the takeover of the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB) by the California Teachers Association (CTA).
Here is an excerpt from the National Legal and Policy Center about this scandal:
TALB officials used $39,629 for political purposes from its nonpolitical accounts. Of that, $10,667 went for miscellaneous campaign expenses such as postage, banners and photography. The union also issued a check from its general fund in August 2006 to attorney Frederick Woocher to pay for unspecified legal fees likely related to defending local school board candidates David Barton, Michael Shane Ellis and Jim Deaton. In all, TALB spent $543,481 on the 2006 elections, or $53,000 more than the sum shown on the union ledger and about $163,500 more than what the local executive board had budgeted. In other words, even if the outlays matched the ledger, there’s still around $110,000 unaccounted for.
As President of the SAEA, Barton was perfectly comfortable endorsing the horrible SAUSD Trustee incumbents Rob Richardson and Jose Hernandez, last year. He made sure they got a ton of union money. Then he looked the other way while SAUSD administrators and teachers were pressured into giving more money to Richardson and Hernandez.
Barton also supported the passage of an unnecessary tax increase last year in the form of Measure G, which was yet another bond measure for the SAUSD. Jane Russo, the SAUSD Superintendent, hired a corrupt uneducated guy who was run out of CAPO to manage the Measure G construction. Sure enough, the first thing he did was remodel the SAUSD administrative offices, particularly his own.
Guess what the useless Barton is doing now? The Long Beach Unified School Board recently “approved to place a $92 annual parcel tax on the November ballot to help fund school district operations and close one-third of the expected deficit for next year and beyond,” according to the Long Beach Post.
“We keep underestimating the size of the problem,” said David Barton, in support of the high $92 size of the annual tax.
It sounds like Barton is admitting that he and his fellow School Board members aren’t up to the job!
God only knows why Barton needed legal defense as a member of the Long Beach Unified School District’s Board of Trustees. I can only imagine what sort of hijinks he was involved in…
UPDATE: Isn’t it interesting? The story we reported on here, from the National Legal and Policy Center, broke on March 12, 2009. Guess what? David Barton’s letter of resignation to the SAEA was also dated March 12, 2009. Coincidence?
They also allegedly ran ANGER MANAGEMENT courses out of that office.
The best thing about David Barton is that he is gone from SAEA. Now if we could just get rid of Jennifer, Susan, and Scott . . .
David Barton was useless when representing me.
NO” can’t believe it teacher unions corrupt!
I hope the CTA has been alerted to the snake pit called SAEA! Barton getting union funds to defend a school board member is hilarious! It sounds so much like what he pulled in Santa Ana from the other position.
The courtesy of a reach-around, if you please.
The best thing may be to vote to de- certify the union, ditch the CTA and the NEA and ally with the far more professional AFT. They typically represent college faculty, from what I know.
How do we get SAEA de-certified?
Remember that nutcase, NeedtoKnow? Well that poster seems to be aware of things at SAUSD and Long Beach, and in fact, had the nerve to try and cast the blame on Patricia. Check out this post from the time of the recent union elections:
NeedToKnow Says:
May 11th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Patricia O’Neil (#720) So, Patty, can you explain to everyone where all this amazing new found knowledge and wisdom regarding budgets comes from? After all of your years in SAUSD, all of a sudden you’ve become an expert? I’m curious why you never volunteered to be on the bargaining committee? Where were you at Rep20Council presenting all of this information over the past years? You have an advanced degree in accounting? Forensic Accounting? And with all of your research, you’ve spoken to the District and asked them to explain themselves? Maybe you should run this info over to the LA Times or the OC Register and have them do a story – you might even get a Pulitzer for it.
Also, while you’re at it, maybe you’d like to explain to everyone that it was during your illustrious term of treasurer that the books at SAEA became so screwed up that CTA had to come in and repair all of the damage caused by you incompetence and correct all of your errors. The damage was so bad, that SAEA came just short of being taken into receivership an run by CTA, just like Long Beach.
Amazingly enough, I don’t question you numbers or you conclusions – I only question where this sudden burst of interest, wisdom and knowledge springs from. You didn’t seem to have i when you were Treasurer. It0s so easy to sit on the sidelines, pick apart, and second guess what the bargaining teams did or didn’t do, knew or didn’t know. But then, of course, even if the bargaining committee explained themselves, their reasoning, their conclusions, I’m sure that people would continue to call them turncoats and liars and never give them the benefit of the doubt.
I know it would probably come as a surprise to you, but did you ever consider that maybe the bargaining committee knows something you DON’T know and based on that knowledge, decisions were made?
Which petty, stupid union hack would say such a thing?
BTW: Nice catch Art. These teachers only spend a thousand dollars a year to be snookered by their lazy union leaders and their political ambitions.
If you look at the time stamp on that post, you’ll see that NeedtoKnow was posting during normal teaching hours. So who would do that? WHO would have the time and venom to attack a candidate running for union president and against the current corrupt cabal? Think hard, teachers. Think!
So, RV, you think that nutcase Need to Know, who defended every ounce of SAEA corruption and ineffectiveness was David Barton. You make a good case for that. You’re probably right.