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Saturday, October 14, 2006
Orange Unified School Board Trustees’ Statements Regarding the October 12th Resolution of Censure
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Kathy Moffat’s statement on 10/14/06 explaining her YES vote for the Resolution of Censure against OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco:
“I believe it is my responsibility if I believe in the By-Laws, and if they mean anything at all, if they are there for any reason at all, then I am obligated to support this Censure”.
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Melissa Smith’s statement on 10/14/06 explaining her YES vote for the Resolution of Censure against OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco:
“I know I am perceived as the swing vote.”
“But what is before us tonight is the question of whether Mr. Rocco violated our Board By-Laws by choosing to breach the privacy rights of an employee of this district and if so should the members of the Board of Education express their disapproval of his behavior as a seated Board member through the act of censure.”
“Just as Mr. Rocco has every right to behave as distastefully, outlandish and foolishly as he chooses without breaking the law, this Board has every right to express their disapproval of that behavior when it violates our by laws and the California State Constitution.”
“Based upon my own witnessing of the events in question and the evidence that has been placed before this Board, I have no other option, but to find that Mr. Rocco has violated our own Board By-laws.”
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Kim Nichols’ statement on 10/14/06 explaining her YES vote for the Resolution of Censure against OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco:
“Just because we have Free Speech doesn’t mean there aren’t any consequences to the Free Speech.”
“We disapprove of what you’re doing. You have gone overboard and stepped over the boundaries of what is reasonable and responsible as a legislative body that is suppose to be here doing the business of our community for the benefit of our students. That is what it is.”
“We have unfortunately, the example in the news recently about a elected official sending emails to pages. That’s his right to free speech to send those emails! But they’re wrong and they have consequences and he will feel those consequences.”
“In this instance Mr. Rocco trampled on the privacy rights that are guaranteed to every citizen in this country. He trampled on them! He gave this employee no opportunity to be present and to defend himself.”
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Steve Rocco statement on 10/14/06 explaining his NO vote for the Resolution of Censure against him:
“This is the Resolution which I received and which I read. And you do need a 2/3 majority vote, but you only need a majority vote to get us to this place here. It’s fraudulent. The title, the subject matter- is principals. Like I hate principals, or that’s the number one issue. This was a ten minute talk I gave. Ten minutes. That’s a long talk about just one principal. That’s very long. And I didn’t just talk about him. No I didn’t. You know why this doesn’t make sense? Because this principal was thrown to the wolves because they only picked that. I talked about four different things, this was twenty five percent of the content. Twenty five percent! Not all of it, twenty five percent!
And the main reason I was against rehiring this principal is because of money. And it’s a brand new position. They didn’t have the position before. You’re going to pay over $100,000 for a position which is only open because Mr. Godley did not get along with the people who came here to speak. He did not get along with the teachers who came here to ask that he be transferred, and you’re not getting along with me. And this is going to cost this district over $100,000.
If he was a teacher he’d be gone. But he is an administrator. And we gave raises to administrators. We fire teachers, we expel students, but we transfer administrators. Send a message. There’s a different set of rules for one group of people, and another set of rules for another group of people.
So like I said, it’s only twenty five percent and you only picked one. You only gave them one issue but I talked about three others.”
“The average people who read this will say ‘woo’ , and what’s it worth? It’s worth votes. It may be worth 100, it maybe worth 1000. Who knows? But it’s worth it. It will sway the people one way or the next… this is an election year. There’s four people up here running, obviously we are not on the same side.”
“Because you know, if you follow the Brown Act, if you follow Robert’s Rules of Order, if you follow state law, if you follow federal law, you don’t need these. You have everything in place to have an orderly meeting. You don’t need a By-law. But with By-Laws you get to do fun things, like prevent me from ever being [Board] president, which was rotation. You get things happening which are not for the majority, because the majority is always going to agree. The By-laws are for the minority here, those who don’t agree, they’re for me.”
“You have a By-law, you don’t agree, you get censured. Because you don’t agree. That, and it’s a real shame, because we are in a wartime. What are you going to tell the soldiers that are fighting out there? You know we made a By-law that got rid of the Constitution? Can we do this? Are we a legislature? Can we make laws? Can we do that? That violates everything I’ve been taught!”
“But you know that just isn’t right. And that’s just what I get to do as one person here on this Board. I get to say ‘It ain’t right’, cause I haven’t won a vote yet, and I’m not going to!”
This ROCCO REPORT is an independent
production of Orange Net News /O/N/N/
Orange Net News is made possible by the
FIRST AMENDMENT of the United States Consitution
and the vision of the United States Founding Fathers
“I believe it is my responsibility if I believe in the By-Laws, and if they mean anything at all, if they are there for any reason at all, then I am obligated to support this Censure”.
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Melissa Smith’s statement on 10/14/06 explaining her YES vote for the Resolution of Censure against OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco:
“I know I am perceived as the swing vote.”
“But what is before us tonight is the question of whether Mr. Rocco violated our Board By-Laws by choosing to breach the privacy rights of an employee of this district and if so should the members of the Board of Education express their disapproval of his behavior as a seated Board member through the act of censure.”
“Just as Mr. Rocco has every right to behave as distastefully, outlandish and foolishly as he chooses without breaking the law, this Board has every right to express their disapproval of that behavior when it violates our by laws and the California State Constitution.”
“Based upon my own witnessing of the events in question and the evidence that has been placed before this Board, I have no other option, but to find that Mr. Rocco has violated our own Board By-laws.”
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Kim Nichols’ statement on 10/14/06 explaining her YES vote for the Resolution of Censure against OUSD Trustee Steve Rocco:
“Just because we have Free Speech doesn’t mean there aren’t any consequences to the Free Speech.”
“We disapprove of what you’re doing. You have gone overboard and stepped over the boundaries of what is reasonable and responsible as a legislative body that is suppose to be here doing the business of our community for the benefit of our students. That is what it is.”
“We have unfortunately, the example in the news recently about a elected official sending emails to pages. That’s his right to free speech to send those emails! But they’re wrong and they have consequences and he will feel those consequences.”
“In this instance Mr. Rocco trampled on the privacy rights that are guaranteed to every citizen in this country. He trampled on them! He gave this employee no opportunity to be present and to defend himself.”
Excerpts from Orange Unified School District Trustee Steve Rocco statement on 10/14/06 explaining his NO vote for the Resolution of Censure against him:
“This is the Resolution which I received and which I read. And you do need a 2/3 majority vote, but you only need a majority vote to get us to this place here. It’s fraudulent. The title, the subject matter- is principals. Like I hate principals, or that’s the number one issue. This was a ten minute talk I gave. Ten minutes. That’s a long talk about just one principal. That’s very long. And I didn’t just talk about him. No I didn’t. You know why this doesn’t make sense? Because this principal was thrown to the wolves because they only picked that. I talked about four different things, this was twenty five percent of the content. Twenty five percent! Not all of it, twenty five percent!
And the main reason I was against rehiring this principal is because of money. And it’s a brand new position. They didn’t have the position before. You’re going to pay over $100,000 for a position which is only open because Mr. Godley did not get along with the people who came here to speak. He did not get along with the teachers who came here to ask that he be transferred, and you’re not getting along with me. And this is going to cost this district over $100,000.
If he was a teacher he’d be gone. But he is an administrator. And we gave raises to administrators. We fire teachers, we expel students, but we transfer administrators. Send a message. There’s a different set of rules for one group of people, and another set of rules for another group of people.
So like I said, it’s only twenty five percent and you only picked one. You only gave them one issue but I talked about three others.”
“The average people who read this will say ‘woo’ , and what’s it worth? It’s worth votes. It may be worth 100, it maybe worth 1000. Who knows? But it’s worth it. It will sway the people one way or the next… this is an election year. There’s four people up here running, obviously we are not on the same side.”
“Because you know, if you follow the Brown Act, if you follow Robert’s Rules of Order, if you follow state law, if you follow federal law, you don’t need these. You have everything in place to have an orderly meeting. You don’t need a By-law. But with By-Laws you get to do fun things, like prevent me from ever being [Board] president, which was rotation. You get things happening which are not for the majority, because the majority is always going to agree. The By-laws are for the minority here, those who don’t agree, they’re for me.”
“You have a By-law, you don’t agree, you get censured. Because you don’t agree. That, and it’s a real shame, because we are in a wartime. What are you going to tell the soldiers that are fighting out there? You know we made a By-law that got rid of the Constitution? Can we do this? Are we a legislature? Can we make laws? Can we do that? That violates everything I’ve been taught!”
“But you know that just isn’t right. And that’s just what I get to do as one person here on this Board. I get to say ‘It ain’t right’, cause I haven’t won a vote yet, and I’m not going to!”
This ROCCO REPORT is an independent
production of Orange Net News /O/N/N/
Orange Net News is made possible by the
FIRST AMENDMENT of the United States Consitution
and the vision of the United States Founding Fathers
