SOCCCD's Kinsler pipes up

The OC Register reports today on the Capo district’s alleged Brown Act violations during closed board sessions:

Closed CUSD meeting draws criticism
Worst example of meeting-law violation in 25 years, attorney says.

According to the counsel for Californians Aware, Terry Francke, the Capo board’s violations are egregious. (The Reg calls Francke, who has in the past opined on SOCCCD issues, "One of the state's foremost experts on open-meetings law.")

In the relevant instances, the Capo trustees were supposedly discussing "criteria for evaluation" of the district Superintendent. But it's very hard to see how that is so.

But guess who’s on hand to defend Superintendent James Fleming and CUSD trustees’ broad interpretation of Brown Act provisions? Why, that would be SOCCCD’s own Warren Kinsler, the fellow who represented the district regarding its—illegal, as it turns out—imposition of a faculty hiring policy over Academic Senate objections.

According to Kinsler, you definitely get to go with a "broad" interpretation of "criteria of evaluation." So there.

The Register spoke with Francke and Peter Scheer, exec director of the California First Amendment Coalition. According to those two, CUSC meeting notes indicate that, in closed session, trustees discussed such items as:

•which school calendar to adopt,

•whether to advertise on school buses,

•a presentation on No Child Left Behind

According to Scheer: "Any reasonable person looking at these minutes would be unlikely to come away thinking he had just observed a performance evaluation…He'd come away thinking he'd just seen what most people would call a school board meeting."

Francke is calling on the district attorney to file charges.

Our district attorney? Don't hold your breath.