| A special raspberry goes to the San Diego Press Club for the bogus award to the Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm website. |
| When Maura Larkins offered to change her ad to precisely mimic an ad currently running in the San Diego Union Tribune, but simply changing the names, the Union Tribune wouldn't run that ad either! |
| Bob Woodward apologized for keeping secrets about the exposure of an American spy, after it was learned that reporter Judith Miller went to jail not because of journalistic ethics, but to hide the truth about her lack of journalistic ethics in her reporting about weapons of mass destruction. |
| The San Diego Union Tribune, the Chula Vista Star-News and La Prensa have some interesting information hidden in their files. |
| National Press Raspberries |
| Chula Vista Star-News Deception Contd. It appears that this campaign against the Castle Park Principal was also supported by CVESD school board member Pamela Smith, who was on very familiar terms with the Chula Vista Star-News at that time. The Star-News frequently published her writings. When Maura Larkins mentioned Pamela Smith to Kelley Dupuis, he denied knowing who she was. It seems that either he did not read his own newspaper, small as it is, and was ignorant about the school district he covered, or he was trying to grow himself a longer nose. |
| Sunshine Week www.sunshineweek.org |
| Chula Vista Star-News publisher Linda Townson and reporter Kelley Dupuis LONG BEFORE five teachers were transferred out of Castle Park Elementary in August 2004, Maura Larkins talked IN PERSON to reporter Kelley Dupuis and editor Michael Burgess of the Chula Vista Star News about problems at the school. Burgess said he would cover the story. He didn't. |
| Karin Winner, editor of the San Diego Union Tribune, refused to print what she knew about Castle Park Elementary, even after she began publishing a long series of half-true articles and letters about the school. She gave Don Sevrens carte blanche to say anything. He said a lot of interesting things. |
| But starting in August 2004, reporter Kelley Dupuis of the Chula Vista Star-News WROTE A SERIES OF ARTICLES on the subject, but he never mentioned a word about the information and documents he received from Maura Larkins. This information was crucial to the story because it involved crimes committed AT THE SCHOOL by at least one of the transferred teachers. Dupuis' idea of an investigative report is to write one side of a story. In this case, he covered the teapot instead of the tempest. Mr. Dupuis also published negative comments about "Mexican parents" which had been made by a Castle Park parent, but he gave the maligned parents no opportunity to respond. contd. below |
| The SDUT's DON SEVRENS When a newspaper cannot admit it is wrong Maura Larkins sent documentation to the San Diego Union Tribune about a culture of disrespect for the law that flourished at Castle Park Elementary for many years before five teachers were transferred out. Don Sevren ignored the information, and wrote ANONYMOUSLY about the teacher transfers without mentioning a word of the information he received from Maura Larkins. |
| The campaign against the Castle Park Elementary principal during the 2004-2005 school year was supported by two reporters, two parents, a group of teachers, and teachers' union President Gina Boyd. Ms. Boyd went to at least one school site council meeting at the invitation of one of those parents, in a clear attempt to intimidate the principal. Was this power-hungry group, which included Don Sevrens and the Chula Vista Star-News' Kelley Dupuis, interested in the needs of children? During that year $20,000 went missing from the Castle Park Elementary PTA. As usual, Mr. Sevrens and the Chula Vista Star-News kept silent about crimes committed by the very people to whom they have given one-sided press coverage. contd. below |
| Don Sevrens really got it wrong when he claimed Felicia Starr must be ethical because she had been appointed by a judge. Don Sevrens claim was false. I obtained the letter below through a public records request to the City of Chula Vista. No judge supported Felicia Starr's appointment to the ethics board. (See scanned document below) |
| San Diego Union Tribune contd. (from bottom of first column) Apparently fearing that this crime would eventually become public knowlege, perhaps because it was being reported by this blog and the San Diego Education Report website, the Chula Vista Police Department seems to have developed a plan in November 2006 to create the appearance that it was no longer covering up the embezzlement. Of course, by November 7, 2006, the election was over. The cover-up was successful. Larry Cunningham crowed that voters had seen throught the lies of his opponents. The truth is that the voters saw almost nothing because Larry and Cheryl had spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to cover up crimes and other violations of law at CVESD. The police asked former Castle Park PTA president Kim Simmons to come in the CVPD office, where she was interviewed and arrested. Was Simmons arrested after a careful investigation? No, the CVPD does not carefully investigate incidents that might embarrass Cheryl Cox and the school board. CVPD arrested Kim Simmons simply to create the impression that they weren't covering up Castle Park crimes, and passed on their humble efforts to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. What did Bonnie Dumanis do? Prosecute the crime? Not likely. Just as she had refused to prosecute CVESD Assistant Superintedent Richard Werlin for obstruction of justice, she also refused to prosecute Kim Simmons. Why? Maybe because Kim Simmons knew too much about crimes at Castle Park Elementary. Did I mention that Kim Simmons was a close friend of transferred teacher Robin Donlan, a member of a powerful teacher clique at Castle Park Elementary that received a great deal of support form local papers when she and several other teachers were transferred out of the school? Robin Donlan and her friends created a bizarre brouhaha, in which they and the media attacked the principal of Castle Park Elementary without ever mentioning the crimes of which Donlan had been accused. The truth was that the principal was attacked for daring to challenge the authority of the "family" that had created a crime wave at the school. In October 2004, Kim Simmons entered a Castle Park Elementary classroom, and asked to use the school phone during class time so she could call up Robin Donlan and ask for instructions on how to proceed with her attacks on the principal of the school. The teacher gave permission, and took the opportunity to explain to her students that she was "mad at the principal." (There has been a dearth of professionalism at Castle Park Elementary since this "Castle Park Family" teacher group took over.) Kim Simmons, along with Gina Boyd, the president of the teacher union, and school site council President Felicia Starr were working with transferred teacher Robin Donlan to get rid of the first principal who had had the nerve to stand up to the arbitrary power of the group of teachers who ruled the school. What was Cheryl Cox's role in all this? She and all the other board members authorized the payment of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz law firm to represent Robin Donlan and cover up the crimes initiated by her and Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin and several other CVESD officers and employees in 2000 and 2001. After fostering perjury and other crimes, and using huge sums of public money to keep bad teachers in power, Cheryl Cox ran for mayor on a platform of "charater" and "fiscal responsibility." The San Diego Union Tribune has maintained to this day a complete black-out regarding crimes committed by Robin Donlan, Richard Werlin, Cheryl Cox and others at CVESD. On November 17, 2006 the SDUT published a small article about the arrest of former PTA Kim Simmons. The story immediately went into "partially hidden" status in the Union-Tribunes archives. (If someone does a signonsandiego search for "castle park PTA Simmons," he'll get a message back saying "No articles found.) The article can only be found by leaving "simmons" out of the search. If you already know about Kimberlee Simmons, the San Diego Union Tribune doesn't want you to know more. |
| San Diego Union Tribune contd. (from above) SDUT printed a bare-bones article regarding Kim Simmons and the missing $20,000 from the Castle Park PTA in November 2006, giving the false impression that a real investigation had been done, but Kim Simmons has not been charged as of April 2007, and the article has been indexed in the SDUT archives in a manner that hides the story from anyone searching for Simmons. Here is a discussion from Rating the Media Blog about the SDUT cover-up of crimes at Castle Park Elementary: Free the San Diego Union Tribune Five! The San Diego Union Tribune refuses to allow its reporters to write the full story about many events, particularly wrongdoing by people of whom the SDUT is fond. The strange events at Castle Park Elementary are one such story. Click here to read more about what went wrong in Chula Vista Elementary School District. When will Karen Winner, William Osborne and Bob Kittle allow reporters to practice journalistic ethics? They might want to start with the fine reporters who cover education issues around the county. I am speaking about good reporters like Chris Moran and Leonel Sanchez. I am most definitely NOT speaking of Don Sevrens, who writes anonymously about education. Winner, Osborne and Kittle should forbid Don Sevrens from writing any more anonymous stories about education. He's told enough whoppers already. Below is the latest installment of the Castle Park Elementary story, taken from the CVESD Reporter Blog. _________________ _________________ _________________ _________________ _______________ CHULA VISTA POLICE DEPARTMENT 2005-06 HOAX ON BEHALF OF CHERYL COX TO COVER UP CVESD WRONGDOING Chula Vista is not the place to go if you are looking for equal protection of the law. It makes a big difference to the CVPD if you're a Republican or Democrat. Republicans like Cheryl Cox get help from the CVPD in covering up crimes and other wrongdoing. On the other hand, a Democratic employee of the City of Chula Vista who took two hours off work to spy on a Cheryl Cox fundraiser has been charged by Bonnie Dumanis with perjury for not admitting he was doing political work on the job. There's a lot of political work being done on the job in Chula Vista, but you don't hear much about the work done by Republicans in the police department. The Chula Vista Police Department is a friend of Cheryl Cox, who was a Chula Vista Elementary school board member before she was elected mayor. The CVPD failed for over a year to investigate a financial crime at Castle Park Elementary School reported in 2005. Why? The CVPD has a knee-jerk policy of covering up wrongdoing by Cheryl Cox and Chula Vista Elementary School District. In 2006 I pursued a public records request for months before the CVPD admitted that it had a record of a police visit to Castle Park Elementary on April 21, 2001. When they decided I wasn't likely to go away, I finally received a copy of the Castle Park Elementary School "call" report.* But the Chula Vista Police Department was doing a lot more than illegally hiding public records in its efforts to support Cheryl Cox's campaign for mayor of Chula Vista in 2006. Between 2000 and 2006 a long string of crimes had been committed at Castle Park Elementary. Cheryl Cox and CVESD committed bigger and bigger crimes to prevent the exposure of earlier, smaller crimes and violations of law committed at Castle Park Elementary in 2000 and 2001. See "Castle Park Elementary," "Teacher Reports," and "Law Enforcement" In 2005-2006, the most newsworthy crime being covered up by the CVPD and the media to protect Cheryl Cox and the CVESD school board was the embezzlement of about $20,000 from the Castle Park Elementary PTA. |
The police waited until Cox was elected, and then they did their hoax arrest, but Kim Simmons was never charged with anything. When will the SD Union Tribune publish the full story, revealing Kim Simmons' close association to Robin Donlan and the "Castle Park Five"? When will the San Diego Union Tribune apologize for so maliciously attacking the honorable and decent principal of Castle Park Elementary on behalf of Robin Donlan, Kim Simmons, and the rest of their clique, after the group was found to be responsible for yet another crime after the SDUT had written so much on its behalf? How about it, Don Sevrens? The SDUT November 2006 story about Simmons arrest was published to create the impression that Bonnie Dumanis and the Chula Vista Police Department are not covering up crimes involving Cheryl Cox and Castle Park Elementary School. It appears that Simmons wasn't really the fall guy; she was actually the pretend fall guy. Bonnie Dumanis, why don't you investigate the use of public resources for political purposes at CVPD? Why don't you investigate crimes at Chula Vista Elementary School District, including perjury by Cheryl Cox and Robin Donlan? Or do you only use the public resources under your control to investigate Democrats? *The police "call' report that was hidden for months by the CVPD revealed Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin's attempt to silence a teacher who had suggested that the media might investigate what was happening at the school in 2001. The teacher clearly knew nothing about the media in San Diego. The San Diego Union Tribune, the Chula Vista Star-News and La Prensa still have not reported those crimes, although all three newspapers have long known about them. These three publications exposed their lack of journalistic ethics when they published a deluge of letters, articles and editorials defending the teacher, Robin Colls/Donlan who initiated the crime wave! All three papers were incensed when Robin Colls was transferred from Castle Park Elementary. Richard Werlin, who called the police when the teacher mentioned the media, didn't correctly estimate the power of his Chula Vista Elementary School Board bosses, including Cheryl Cox, to silence the media. Werlin did go on to achieve a certain amount of notoriety for his use of the police to silence teachers. He had second-grade teacher Jenny Mo arrested in front of her students at his new school district in Richmond, California this year when the teacher went to the media with a story about bullying at her school. Of course, Werlin didn't step up and take the credit/blame for the arrest. He let the principal sit in the hot seat, while he took indefinite sick leave from his position. |
| Judge Fraser Refused to Recommend Felicia Starr for the Chula Vista Ethics Board |
| San Diego Union Tribune contd. (from bottom of middle column) Of course, there has been no follow-up to the SDUT story. But there should be a follow-up,because the story created the false impression that the police were actually intending to do something about crime at Castle Park Elementary. Nothing could be farther from the truth. |
| The San Diego Union Tribune and the Chula Vista Star-News both refused to accept this political advertisement before the November 2004 election. |
| The San Diego Union Tribune and Chula Vista Star News protected Judd from this ad in 2004. |
| Silence is golden? |
| Home Why This Website SDCOE CVESD Castle Park Elem Law Enforcement CTA CVE Stutz Artiano Shinoff Silence is Golden Schools and Violence Office Admin Hearings Larkins OAH Hearing |
| Schools and the Media |
| Chula Vista Star-News August 20, 2004 Sept. 10, 2004 Ollie Matos & Nikki Perez |
| La Prensa Sept. 17, 2004 School Board Demonstration by Castle Park Five |
| The San Diego Union Tribune requires employees to sign a confidentiality agreement May 2009 The agreement U-T Clamps Down on Potential Rivals RANDY DOTINGA May 22, 2009 In an unusual move for a newspaper, the recently sold San Diego Union-Tribune is requiring employees to sign a confidentiality agreement forbidding them from wooing current or former co- workers to a competitor. The agreement appears to put a crimp in any employee's plans to create or join a rival company -- such as an online news site -- and bring recent colleagues on board, even those without jobs. The president of the newspaper industry's leading labor union said he's never seen such an "outrageous" restriction before, and a local professor said it will have a "chilling effect" on those who want to start competing businesses. A U-T spokesman declined to comment. Unlike other states, California doesn't allow companies to prevent their employees from working for competitors. But the state does permit "non-solicitation" clauses like the one in the U-T agreement, said Ruben Garcia, an associate professor at California Western School of Law. The two-page confidentiality agreement states: "I shall not solicit directly or indirectly, any person who is a SDUT employee or who has been employed by SDUT within the prior six (6) months for employment by, or any business relationship with, a competitor." The agreement says the restriction will be in place for two years after a worker's employment ends. The U-T is "asking a lot, especially in this climate," said Bernie Lunzer, president of the Newspaper Guild. "I would expect it would make people very upset." The Newspaper Guild represented hundreds of employees at the U-T until 1998, when workers voted to kick out the union. Garcia said the wording of the agreement is unusual because it forbids indirect solicitation. "I don’t know what it means to 'indirectly' solicit someone," he said. He added that non- solicitation clauses generally require that employees be given something in return for agreeing to them. The U- T confidentiality agreement states that the newspaper provides employment in return for signing the contract. If the U-T asks an employee to sign the agreement while already working at the paper, the agreement states that "additional consideration, to be determined by the SDUT" will be provided. In its legal sense, "consideration" refers to what a party to a contract gets in return for agreeing to its terms. The confidentiality agreement apparently applies to both current employees and those who are being laid off. Today is the last day of work for many of the 192 employees laid off by the U-T earlier this month, although they will be paid through July 6. |
| Link: May 2009 San Diego Union-Tribune Confidentiality Agreement |
| Secrets in the San Diego Press |