Ross, Macedo Topic of Closed Session
Attorney: Meeting Illegal

Tulare - An attorney for Councilman Wayne Ross has charged Ross and Councilman David Macedo recently were targets of a politically motivated investigation sparked by City Manager Darrel Pyle.

Michael Lampe, a Visalia attorney, also charged Ross and Macedo were improperly excluded from a closed door City Council meeting regarding the investigation and that the session violated the state's open meeting laws.

The investigation apparently had to do with allegations that Ross and Macedo made comments to employees that caused those employees to feel “uncomfortable,” Lampe said.

Lampe said his client could not discuss the matter.

“They can't talk because all this took place in closed session,” he said.

Contacted late last week, Macedo also said he would not discuss the matter.

“There is no longer any investigation,” he said. “I'm not going to comment – on any of it.”

Lampe said he believes the councilmen were “exonerate because nothing happened” after the investigation was completed.

Two Meetings

Closed door sessions regarding what Lampe said was an oral complaint made by Pyle on behalf of himself and department heads were held April 20 and May 18.

Lampe said his client (Ross), Macedo and Pyle were all told to leave the April 20 session by Fresno attorney Shelline Bennett, whom Pyle said has worked with the city on personnel issues for years – even prior to his arrival in late 2005.

Ross and Macedo, as did Pyle, left the meeting as requested, Lampe said, adding he later told Ross that absent a court order, an opinion from the state Attorney General's Office or one from the Fair Political Practices Commission, he was not to leave a meeting again.

The closed door sessions were listed on the agenda as “Conference with Legal Counsel – Anticipated Litigation” per section 54956.9 (b) (1) of the Brown Act, the state's open meeting law.

That section allows the City Council to go into closed session if it and its attorney believe circumstances exist that create “significant exposure” to a lawsuit against the city

“There never ever was a significant exposure to litigation against the local agency [the city],” Lampe said.

He said a letter he received from Bennett on May 3 – two weeks after the first closed session – makes that clear to him.

Bennett's letter was in response to an April 29 letter Lampe had written, outlining conclusions he had reached regarding the nature of the investigation and asking if they were accurate.

Bennett replied she did not have enough information about “the complainant(s) nor his/her/their complaint(s) to indicate at this time if the facts you have set forth are accurate.”

She also told him the conclusions he made were not communicated by her and noted when he contacted her initially to discuss the matter, she told him she did “not have facts regarding this matter” and referred him to Scott Nelson, who was conducting the investigation.

Lampe contends that if Bennett did not have the facts, then she could not make the determination that “existing facts and circumstances” indicated “significant exposure to litigation” and, therefore, the closed session was not legal.

Calls placed to Bennett, asking for comment, were not returned prior to deadline. Neither were calls placed to City Attorney Steve Kabot.

In a letter to Bennett, Lampe said an oral complaint made by a city manager against two sitting councilmen is “I must say, a rather unique situation.”

Pyle, who said he cannot discuss the specifics of the matter, said the situation is not unique and he is aware of at least two other situations going on in the Central Valley that are almost identical.

He also said Bennett provides training to all City of Tulare managers and department heads, including himself, regarding how they are to handle personnel issues that arise to avoid putting the city legally at risk.

“I followed my training as provided by Shelline,” Pyle said, adding “if I was wrong, then she can tell me so.”

Lampe, again in his letter to Bennett, said Pyle's action “appears to be a political stunt designed to remove two of Mr. Pyle's critics from participating in his annual performance review which I understand is set to occur in the near future.”

The council had been scheduled to conduct Pyle's review in a closed session at the end of the April 20 meeting, but chose not to do so. The matter regarding Ross and Macedo was taken up prior to the council's regular meeting.

Mayor Craig Vejvoda was asked why the review was not held. He said that was a closed door matter and he could not discuss it. On May 18, he said the review will likely occur at the council's June 1 meeting.

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Trustees Delay Adult School Decisions

Tulare - Former students, parents, retired administrators, teachers and others are urging Tulare Joint Union High School District trustees to dip into reserves and not cut Tulare Adult School positions or increase class sizes at the high schools.

Many showed up for the board's regular May 20 meeting and spoke before trustees announced they were postponing a scheduled decision on proposed Adult School cutbacks to a yet-to-be determine time.

“We want to have more time to analyze it,” Chairman Steven Lessley said. He reported “some of the numbers, compared with what we saw a month ago, are moving in a favorable direction.”

Trustee Craig Hamilton assured the standing-room-only audience the board will “do our best to hold on to whatever we can as long as we can.”

George Maness, a former Tulare high school administrator, warned trustees against letting money sit in reserves, contending the state could come in and take a portion of the money as it has done in the past with other tax-funded entities.

Wayne Clark, former superintendent of the Pixley Union Elementary District, spoke about the positive impact that Tulare Adult School classes held in Pixley have had on

the community, where children now see their parents going back to school.

“It's just a vital part of what's happened in Pixley,” Clark said.

Veronica Chavez, daughter of migrant parents, generated enthusiastic applause after she told how seven years ago at age 30 she enrolled in the Adult School to learn how to read and write and went on to earn a bachelor's degree in accounting and to land a job with the U.S. Treasury Department.

“The Adult School can change people's lives,” Chavez said. “It sure has changed my life.”

Parent Jesse Ruby, who also is pastor of a Tulare church, spoke of the district's “healthy reserve” and said the question to ask is: “Do we value our teachers, our students or our staff, or do we value our reserve?”

Reserve Amount

While negotiations between the district and its employees are only now starting, the district is proposing 3 percent salary cuts, furlough days and larger class sizes for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

While Maness, teachers and others have made reference to a $22 million reserve, that was the amount the district had at the beginning of the 2009-10 fiscal year and it included $4.7 million in restricted money.

By June 30 – the last day of the current fiscal year – the fund balance is expected, at least on paper, to be $17.16 million with $3.7 million of that restricted, the district's business manager, Vivian Hamilton, reported in April.

But because the state plans to continue deferring 25 percent of what it owes schools, Hamilton has said the actual total cash on hand is estimated to be about $10 million. That would again include restricted funds.

If the district doesn't cut expenses and the state remains in a fiscal crisis, the district could find itself with $3.09 million in reserves by the end of the 2011-12 year, officials have said, adding that is equivalent to only one month's worth of salaries and benefits.

The Adult School has been hit particularly hard by the state budget crisis, taking a 20 percent hit in funding in the current fiscal year.

Now the state has deemed a portion of adult education money as “flexible,” which means high school districts can chose to use it for other purposes.

In April, Tulare trustees agreed to cut $325,272 in programs, which includes contracts with the Tulare Senior Center, Tulare Beauty College and the Tulare County Office of Education.

Other proposed cutbacks under consideration would bring the total dollar loss to the Adult School to about $1.02 million and involve:

· Releasing all part-time instructors, $500,000.
· Eliminating evening supervision, $12,400.
· Eliminating one office clerk position, $43,500.
· Closing the welding program, $120,500.

Adult School director Marie Pinto said daytime and nighttime welding classes are full and she would like to find a way to maintain that program, which offers students state certification.

The proposed cutbacks would leave the Adult School without part-time independent study and English-as-Second language teachers for evening classes.
If the cutbacks are necessary, she would like to negotiate to use other teachers in the district to cover those classes because she will only have 11 fulltime Adult School teachers and most do not have the type of credentials necessary to teach them, Pinto said.

She would hope to use members of her full-time staff to handle medical records, billing and coding, certified nursing assistant training and other classes that part-time teachers now handle, she said.

Several people who spoke to trustees last week urged them to keep the Adult School's classes for adults with disabilities, but those are not on the chopping block.
Pinto has asked the board to make a decision at its June 17 meeting, because she has to issue contracts by July 1.

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Trail-a-thon to Benefit Emergency Aid, Others

Tulare - Tulare Emergency Aid (TEA) has a new director, who is not only excited about this weekend's Santa Fe Trail-a-thon but about other good things that are helping the non-profit fulfill its mission.

Tulare Sunrise Rotary is donating a portion of the proceeds from Saturday's 5K run to Emergency Aid, which helped 9,478 families in 2009, as well as local youth programs.

The event comes just a few weeks after the Tulare (noon) Rotary Club donated proceeds from the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast to the organization and local postal carriers allocated a portion of the food they collected on their annual drive to them.

“It just seems like every time I turn around something positive is happening,” said Debbie Thrasher, who took over as TEA's earlier this year. She replaced Jan Donwen, who stepped down for medical reasons.

It has been a rough couple years for Emergency Aid, which has managed to keep its doors open largely because Donwen, Thrasher and other board members forged ahead after the organization unexpectedly lost its director in March 2009.

The challenge was no small one and Thrasher reports she and Donwen worked feverishly, with the help of TEA's full-time program coordinator Vanessa Bravo, to gather information to meet impending deadlines for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) applications.
They retained EFSP grant and lost the other, but the organization managed to keep the doors open to meet the needs of the growing number of people who were coming for food as the economy continued to sour.

The numbers of people seeking help increased dramatically last fall after the Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church announced it was closing its community food distribution program and redirecting its efforts.

By Dec. 31, TEA had distributed 240,500 pounds of food, far exceeding it's the 2008 total of 154,988 pounds, Thrasher said.

When Donwen left, Thrasher said she accepted the position of director with the knowledge TEA could not afford a director's salary. She gets paid $300 for what is supposed to be a 20-hour workweek but is often much longer than that.

“We really had to have someone step-up to the plate,” Thrasher said, recalling she wrote a memorandum to the board before she was hired stating her view that TEA had been “in a holding pattern” for several years and the board needed to decide to “go for it” or close the doors.

She and Donwen were “heartbroken” last year when TEA lost a $20,000 CDBG grant through a competitive process and Thrasher and the board decided they would seek the funds again this year.

The effort paid off with the city awarding the non-profit the full amount $20,000 it requested.

Thrasher is working with churches to get more to help financially on a regular basis and also to urge them to consolidate efforts and feed the hungry through TEA.

“It's a more efficient and fair way of giving out resources,” she said. “We are aware people are going from church to church to get food and churches want to help, but sometimes it's an enablement. If churches want to keep their pantry for their own member, that's different.”

Her “wish list” includes computer equipment that would allow TEA to link with other social services to coordinate benefits so people don't take advantage.

Thrasher also reports she is spending time looking for a new location for TEA, when its landlord, the Tulare Redevelopment Agency, decides to demolish the North N Street building in which it operates.

One of her dreams is to develop a community garden, where individuals without yards could grow food and TEA could harvest fresh vegetables for its pantry, Thrasher said, reporting she already has “a couple leads” on land that might be available for the project.

“I have a lot of people who are really excited and interested in helping out with a garden,” she said. “It's going to take a lot of work.”

TEA receives $20,000 in CDBG and $30,793 in EFSP grants that help with emergency food and shelter, but also must rely on individual, church and corporate contributions, fundraisers such as the Trail-a-thon, and income from its thrift shop to generate what Thrasher hopes will be at least an additional $66,600 to cover costs.

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