Thursday, October 25, 2012

EUSD Superintendent Tim Baird admits he's asset-stripping to fund the budget

Just two years after his 30-year-debt-for-iPads swindle, Encinitas Union School District Superindendent Tim Baird now admits that his plan to strip the community of an irreplaceable asset is all about plugging the hole in his budget. Patch:
“This loss of revenue will force us to raise class sizes even higher, and ultimately lay off some of our best and brightest teachers," Baird said.

“It is not too late to stop this train wreck."
So how will EUSD pay its teachers a few years down the road when the money from Pacific View has been blown through? One of the most basic principles of running any organization is that you don't use non-recurring revenues for recurring expenses.

Baird, by the way, is reportedly demanding a pay raise, and the school board, including Mark Muir's wife Maureen Muir [I stand corrected?], appears set to give it to him.

18 comments:

  1. Mo has been willing to stand up and say no. Let's give her a chance. We should give the rest of the board a chance too.

    For the record, which board members gave the raise to the last outgoing Sup? Did that raise get calculated into their lifetime pension payouts, which the district will be liable for over the next decades (yes, taxpayers are liable for the pensions).

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    2. Yes, my experience with Mo is that she is stood AGAINST awarding an escrow to Art Pulse and DeWald. I believe she probably voted no on Baird's pay raise, too, and his contract renewal. I'm not positive on those, but I was at the August 14 EUSD meeting, and she was the only one who voted NOT to go into escrow with Art Pulse and John DeWald, because she said the land was donated. I went up and shook her hand; she was very gracious.

      The rest of the trustees, had already made up their minds. Real property negotiations take place in closed session. Baird has been pushing his privatization and pro mixed use development, short term profit agenda since before he came to EUSD in 2009.

      In 2008, he was doing the same thing in Ojai; he was trying to halt the construction of a skatepark promised by the City to the community, there, and instead because of bogus claims of a potential increase in crime, and that the community couldn't work on the property (the local police and insurance company executives claimed otherwise) an strip mall styled "art center" should instead be built. Baird was embroiled in controversy, and left town when he was offered over $200,000 per year at EUSD, over $65,000 per annum more than he was making in Ojai.

      After he came to Encinitas, the skatepark in Ojai was built, which is appreciated by the general public who supported it. Baird favors special interests. Art Pulse is really just a pawn in his "game" (ironically, the Art Pulse director is April Game) to privatize the land, take it out of the public domain, by rezoning.

      Baird, as recently as a year ago, last October, put out a press release saying the Naylor Act doesn't apply, because the land was to be traded, not leased or sold. Now because he thinks the Naylor Act no longer applies, it IS for lease or sale. Baird seems to be a master of pressuring, through a lawsuit, or by setting up an "deadline" whereby his shaky deal had to fall through . . .

      We do support an art center, with more open space. Before the land is leased or sold, it should be independently appraised. EUSD can't pick and choose what part of the Education Code, statutory law, it wants to follow, only going by what loophole lawyers suggest is "do-able." Baird has nothing to lose by using public funds to sue the public, in suing the City. Perhaps he'd think twice if he had to pay for EUSD's legal fees, as well as our City's!

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  2. Baird needs to be run out on a rail with $tock$. Both self-serving incompetent crooks.

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  3. Dump Baird.
    Dump Baird.
    Baird Sucks.
    Dump Baird.

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  4. Simply the fact Jerome Stocks has someone like Mike Andreen doing his dirty work, should be enough to vote him out. Now the Coast News is under attack. Andreen was fired from that paper, a fact he never acknowledges. He talks about his "friend", Bob Nanninag, who isn't the saint he would want us to believe. Both of them were involved with the Maggie Houlihan clown harassment stunt many years ago.

    Ask me who your friends are and I'll tell you what you are.

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  5. Tim Baird and all of these school administrators are the same. They talk about their responsibility to the children and to the "wonderful teachers," but they are only out for Number 1.

    It is a good question that WC poses. What DID happen to all of that money from the proposition that we passed 2 years ago??

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  6. Pay raise?? The only thing he should get is boot up his ass as he's been run out of town.

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  7. Lie, Mo does not support giving Tim Baird a raise. Mo took a NO stance on prop and took out a ballot statement against it

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    1. Sooo what happened to all the money???? Does Mo support giving a raise to city workers...like her hubby?? Why of course she does, when has she ever opposed a giant fat raise for city workers at the expense of taxpayers...Shit it's only money!! Right?? We can all afford to give a little bit more can't we?? Of course we can, after all not anyone of us that built our bidnesses alone, Prez Obama was right there beside us.

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  8. Thanks for making the correction.

    How can anyone blame Baird. Isn't he just doing what the board of directors wants him to do, and he has no duty to play ethically if the board doesn't want him to?

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    1. Touche.

      Though their positions are theoretically equivalent, I view Baird as much more of a power and a policy-maker than that other fella you're thinking of, who seems more of a go-fer to me.

      Is that perception way off-base?

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    2. I can put at least part of the blame on Baird. A strong, aggressive superintendent can persuade a school board to go in the direction he wants. School boards are not usually made up of intelligent, experienced, and independent people. They go along to get along. And they like to get reelected.

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  9. Is that distinction more than just perception. Mr. Vina is the smoothest CM we've had in the last decade. What he says and what he does are two different things.

    If anyone has any doubt. Look into what he did (and didn't do) with ERGA.

    Mr. Vina is open about viewing the CM position as being an equal to the council in setting public policy, rather than just carrying out the policy of the council.

    Mr. Vina also goes way outside of bounds, as considered by other current and former city managers, on using his own discretion to keep the public out of decision making and to keep them from knowing the truth. He has said explicitly that involving the public and being open with the public gets in the way of doing the public's business. Would you vote for a candidate with that view? Would you vote for a candidate who supported a CM with that view?

    This was a core belief, not something the Mayor told him to say when there was a gun to his head. This was early on in his tenure. He has also lied and mislead many people in the community.

    Even if there was direction given to Mr. Vina. He made the choice to participate in a violation of the law.

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    1. I agree that Gus Vina is part of the problem. He got a vote of no confidence in Sacramento, where he was interim City Manager. He should be making less here; we are a much smaller city. When he was asked to pitch in $6,000 per year towards his excellent benefits, he should NOT have also got a $6,000 raise. That is NOT pension reform.

      Vina COULD have set a good example, and Council just went along with his raise, ALL of Council. It's disappointing, but not surprising. I pulled his raise from the consent calendar on 9/26. One other member of the public spoke about it; he asked that Vina should leave the room, so it could be discussed by Council without him present. Stocks was rude to that speaker, and of course, Vina didn't comply with the request.

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  10. http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/encinitas/eusd-changes-website-following-campaigning-complaint/article_1147abf2-7564-50fe-ae0a-2caa80e159b4.html

    Interesting article in NCT. Baird enjoys picking and choosing what law he wants to follow, and which ones he wants to try to squirm out of, with loopholes!

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  11. When you are being starved to death by a moronic public, you don't die with food still on the table. Californians don't think they should throw money at the problem of education, this is what happens.

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  12. Dump Baird . Baird. Does suck!!!!!!!

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