Villa Park High School "walk-on" wrestling coach was arrested for alleged felony battery on Villa Park HS student
Via The Orange County
Weeklyblog...
A
"walk on" wrestling coach was arrested Wednesday for alleged felony
battery on a Villa Park
High School wrestler, the
sheriff's department just announced.
Emmanuel Hugo Hernandez, 26, of Orange, allegedly choked
out the student who, while unconscious, was punched several times in the head,
leaving a visible injury to his right ear area, according to sheriff's Lt. Jeff
Hallock, who added the wrestler had to be treated at a hospital.
# posted by /OCS/ Orange Communication System @ 6:00 AM
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent
insight into OUSD
a news service of
Orange
Net News
/O/N/N/
OUSD Board votes 7-0 to end
Peralta site development attempt
At their October 24, 2013 Regular
monthly meeting, the Orange Unified School Board Trustees voted 7-0 to
terminate the attempt to lease the former Peralta school site to a developer.
The vote ended the controversial plan and all agreements with the
proposed developer Fairfield LLC to build a high density apartment project
under a 99 year lease.
The 7-0 vote brought an end and a
stunning defeat to the Board Majority under OUSD Board President Timothy
Surridge. Surridge had stated at the September OUSD Board meeting he was
ready to vote to end the project.
The proposed project had united a
coalition of neighborhoods, activists, civic and political leaders across the
Greater Orange Communities in opposition.
However, in announcing his vote,
Surridge framed his capitulation to the broad-based community coalition as
" a compromise". Surridge called for the "compromise"
price of his vote to end the project to be met by the opponents of the project
agreeing to sell all the district's approximately 40 acres of reserved
properties. Then Surridge voted, in what had become an inevitable vote,
with the other trustees with no further mention of the "Surridge
compromise".
The meeting had started with Surridge
calling for the Informational Item on a likely facilities Bond to be heard
before the Action items ( of which the Peralta vote was one). In a thinly
veiled "spontaneous" address to the OUSD Board in pubic comments section
before the bond presentation, a few Surridge business allies called for
supporting a Bond tried to connecting the bond to the "Surridge
compromise" of selling of all the district's reserve properties. Surridge
and those few allies were the only ones who mentioned the "Surridge
compromise".
When the vote on the Peralta Properties
finally came to the OUSD Board, Surridge asked that the public comments
be held until after the vote. Those public comments from the Save Peralta
Property neighbors however were far from being in the mood for a "Surridge
compromise" that would turn the Peralta site , or any of the OUSD reserve
properties over to developers. The speakers made it clear that the surplus
proprieties and the bond were very separate issues for the community.
Despite the unanimous 7-0 vote on Peralta, the
meeting did provide continued insight into the divisions between the two sides
on the divided Board. Trustee Diane Singer at the start of the meeting made a
point that her proposed agenda item to re-consider the current Board policy of
only having one meeting a month was not added to the agenda. She insisted on
knowing why.
In an awkward moment , OUSD Superintendent
Michael Christensen reported to Singer that Board President Surridge had
determined that the agenda was too long to add Singer's item. To that
information Singer retorted that was the perfect example of why having more
than one meeting a month was needed.
The October Agenda did include a rather high
number of Action Items- 6 total-plus two Information Items including the item
on a new OUSD High Schools Bond issue attempt.
However, with a smaller November Agenda with
only three minor Action Items and 4 minor Information Items, Singer's Agenda request to discuss having more than one
monthly meeting is still not on the Agenda.
A
new OUSD Bond openly discussed and advocated
One consequence of the Peralta fiasco attempt
to raise building funds for school improvement is the inevitability of an OUSD
Bond election focusing on the OUSD high schools. The bond issue has picked up
enormous support across the Greater Orange Communities.
At the September 24th OUSD meeting, the
information presented in Information Item 13 B by bond campaign strategists
fully laid out the process on how OUSD would embark on a bond campaign. The openness, discussion and inclusiveness for
a new OUSD Bond attempt is a far cry
from the secretive and behind-the-scenes maneuvering that was the signature
trademark of the last two failed OUSD Bond attempts. The new strategy also
appears to be winning supporters.
As parent, business and community groups, as
well as local politicians begin to join in the support of a new OUSD School Bond, it is becoming apparent that the only thing
that could stop momentum of that support toward placing a bond before the OUSD
community is the politics of the OUSD Board itself.
In the inevitable vote to end the Peralta
development, Surridge seemed to be taking his cues from the Texas Tea Party "hostage
extremists" in signaling trying to hold OUSD's surplus properties as
hostage over putting a bond forward.
The fate of a new OUSD Bond attempt seems to be
in the hands of the more moderate OUSD
trustees, Dr. Alexia Deligianni, Mark Wayland and longtime Board members Rick
Ledesma and John Ortega. Ironically, it
is Ledesma and Ortega who have been the biggest vocal advocates over their long
Board careers for fixing OUSD schools.
The first test on the newest open and
community-wide efforts at uniting the Greater Orange Communities to support
a new bond attempt will be the OUSD
Annual Organizational Meeting on December 12, 2013. At that meeting the OUSD Board will vote for
a new Board President, Vice President and Clerk. A third unprecedented term as Board President
for Surridge could prove disastrous for the Greater Orange Communities if he
makes good on his move to hold OUSD's surplus property hostage in exchange for
a bond election.
However, with both Surridge and Ledesma up for
reelection in 2014, and with the anti-growth and pro-open space sentiment an
overwhelming issue that unites community and political activists across the
Greater Orange Communities, the debate
over a quid pro quo selling of OUSD surplus property in exchange for a bond election
may become a mute point- or a winning election issue.
OUSD Board to discuss
return of an OUSD Elementary Music program
On
the OUSD November 14, 2013 Agenda is Information Item 13 D- a discussion on
directing staff " to conduct a study
and develop a report regarding the implementation of a District-wide elementary
music program".
OUSD's
elementary music programs were a very controversial cut back brought on by the
Great Recession.
The
Agenda item is for discussion only and was placed on the Agenda by OUSD Board
President Timothy Surridge.
INSIDE the OUSD
November 14 2013 Board Agenda
Action Item 12 B-(Agenda pgs 24-27) an unusual request from staff for a
"Reconfirmation" of a 2008 OUSD Board vote that declared the Walnut
property ( next to Santiago
Charter Middle
School) as surplus.
Action Item
12 C (Agenda pgs 28-36)
voting on the tentative agreement between OUSD and Local 67 of the California
School Employees Association. This agreement is with the district's support
staff.
Information Items
13 A (Agenda pg 37) Annual
Audit Report for 2012-2013
13 C ( Agenda pgs 39-42)
vote on the Student Calendars for the next three school years (2014-15;
2015-16; 2016-17) .
NEXT OUSD BOARD MEETING November
14, 2013
Next OUSD Board Meeting -OUSD BOARD ROOM
CLOSED SESSION- 6:30 pm
OUSD Regular Session: 7:00 pm
For more information call the OUSD
Superintendent’s office at 714-628-4040
For budgeting questions call Business Services at
714-628-4015
ARCHIVAL Information and direct news can be found
at:
ORANGE
Unified Schools INSIDE
and the
Greater Orange News Service
are independent news services of /O/N/N/
Orange
Net News
“Greater Orange's
TRUSTED independent news for over 12 years"
# posted by /OCS/ Orange Communication System @ 8:28 PM
