Mayor Bogaard,
You received an email regarding the taxation without representation from John Crawford. Here is that correspondence:
Mayor Bogaard,
I run a blog called the Sierra Madre Tattler. I was at your meeting last night in Pasadena, and I wrote about my observations and experiences there for today's post. I thought I should share some of my thoughts with you.
Perhaps you are not aware, but here in Sierra Madre we do not feel that we have been given quite the respect or care that our financial contributions to your school system warrant. There is quite a bit of anger.
The revelation that this "Community Schools" effort was being finalized, and after we had been told nothing about it, is part and parcel to the problem. The Pasadena BOE actually met with Sierra Madre's City Council a couple of weeks back, and made no mention whatsoever of "Community Schools." For so large and expensive an initiative as this one, the omission had to have been both deliberate and planned.
Couple that with the loss of our right to vote in the 2013 BOE election, along with the destruction of our Middle School by the careless functionaries of the PUSD, plus the growing belief here that we will not receive what was promised to us when the school district was asking for our Measure TT vote, and you can see there is a reason for some concern.
It is a shoddy and unfortunate situation.
Have a great day, John Crawford
As a very concerned citizen of Sierra Madre, I would like to know what your answer is. Taxation without representation is a very serious matter Mr. Bogaard, frankly the people of Sierra Madre are pretty tired of getting the proverbial shaft from PUSD.
I look forward to your reply, (name withheld)
(Mod: What follows now is Mayor Bogaard's reply.)
Dear (name withheld):
I have your message regarding the PUSD situation in the City of Sierra Madre, and I appreciate your conveying this information as a source of better data on the situation for my benefit.
In truth, I do not feel well informed on the Sierra Madre experience with PUSD, not having any formal responsibility to your great community, and recognizing that the PUSD schools are an independent agency from Pasadena City Hall.
In the past, I have maintained open lines of communication with several Sierra Madre Councilmembers, but in recent times that communication has not been maintained. I am sure I am disadvantaged by not having such relationships.
I thought it would be well to mention that the PUSD/City Work Plan is, in my view, simply a starting point for a focused effort by PUSD and the City of Pasadena to explore opportunities to work together. This represents a continuation of Pasadena’s efforts over several years to collaborate with the schools as a way of strengthening the educational experience of the students. For example, Pasadena has committed a total of $2.5 million to two gym projects at PUSD, at McKinley School and at Washington Middle School. In this way, we hope to strengthen the working relationship with PUSD.
I am not aware of what efforts might have been pursued along these lines in your community as part of the working relationship with PUSD.
I should emphasize that the Work Plan does not represent any new monetary allocation, but is simply using current budgetary resources in a different way as described above.
Finally, as previously mentioned, the PUSD schools in Pasadena are independent of Pasadena City Hall and we work with the District as a collaborator in our joint efforts. I regret that I do not have more substantive response to the questions you raise about the relationship between Sierra Madre and PUSD.
BILL BOGAARD
Mayor
Mod: The circle of elected officials who do not know what the Pasadena Unified School District has been up to in Sierra Madre continues to widen. Perhaps it is the lack of any municipal oversight that causes the PUSD to act as irresponsibly as they do? The thought that we entrusted several hundred million dollars in bond money to a Board of Education comprised of so dull a set of knives is troublesome. That they have no adult supervision whatsoever doesn't make me fell much better. Who exactly do they answer to?
The sad irony here is that through his letter to our friend, Mayor Bill Bogaard has now acknowledged more about the confiscation of Sierra Madre's Board of Education vote than Sierra Madre's own Mayor, Josh Moran. Think about that as you don't cast your vote next Tuesday.
There was also a missed opportunity here. At the Pasadena City Council / PUSD Joint Meeting the other week our friend Tony Brandenburg had planned to talk during public comment about the topic of vote confiscation. Unfortunately the two minute limit imposed by Mayor Bogaard prevented Tony from speaking on the issue. Something which would have helped bring the Mayor up to speed on this matter. If Bill only knew how close he had come to learning more about this, and more. Here is what Tony had wanted to say (original location click here):
As Pasadena moves full throttle towards its lofty goals for the future, it has left a couple of things out of the discussion, mainly the independent cities of Altadena and Sierra Madre. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a big deal, but there are a couple of things that still hold our auxiliary cities hostage besides proximity, one is that we are still part of the Pasadena Unified School District, the other is that we are now locked into a city plan that does not and never has included us, but which holds us hostage in the same way our children are locked into the PUSD school system.
Item 1: The voters of Sierra Madre rejected the Measure A redistricting, yet the outcome is that Sierra Madre is still bound by its restrictions. We have lost our right to vote on a Board member until 2015, and even at that time could be saddled with a Board Member who does to serve the needs of our city, or a Sierra Madre board member who does not necessarily provide for East Pasadena constituents. Quite simply, this is taxation without representation.
Item 2: This redistricting has further denied every PUSD family of having a BOE that represents it's needs, by fragmenting the board in order to provide equity, the opposite effect has emerged. Any families who utilize magnet schools, or who are special education students bused for specific programs have a board member voted for by someone else, and who were denied the right to vote for representation. Again, this is taxation without representation.
Item 3: As the City of Pasadena works towards its 8th guiding principle, it neglects to notice that there are two other cities affected, but not necessarily included in this discussion. Grassroots groups such as IIPK do not speak for, nor represent the interests of Sierra Madre families and students.
Item 4:Memorandum of Understanding MOU as PUSD continues to work towards MOU's with Pasadena Police Department, we wish to continue to voice our concerns that the due process and civil rights of students accused of crimes are honored first and foremost as the schools are working as en loco parentis at that time
Item 5:Special Ed Questionnaire from December. In December I received a link to a November questionnaire for the City of Pasadena’s Policy on Children, Youth and Families (PCYF) from the CAC which provides support for parents of Students with specialized needs in Pasadena. I exchanged a couple of emails with Jackie Scott, but I was not able to determine whether the input of Sierra Madre parents was desired. My conclusions were that they were not.
Item 6: SARB process and students outside of school subdistricts vs. City/DA prosecuting families who are tardy, especially when most of the schools are over impacted with school arrival traffic, and with the schools not offering transportation alternatives. This is further exacerbated for families who fall out of grace with local providers at the site level such as teachers and administrators. As the city moves towards its goals to stitch up school and local government for what it calls the betterment of community, but which I call the further interference of government and the securing of taxpayer funded folly, the spectre of “take it, or else” programs looms on the horizon for parents who do not take advantage of parent workshops and school recommendations.
Mod: At the Tuesday morning Middle School walk through I had an opportunity to discuss some of these issues with Susan Henderson, the publisher of the Mountain Views News. Susan said that she would be writing extensively soon about the PUSD situation, but did not want to discuss her views on these matters with me out of a fear that I would write about them here before she had the opportunity to publish them. I thought that was fair enough. However, I asked her if the BOE vote confiscation issue would be included in her examination. She said no, it would not.
Again, I find this kind of passivity baffling. Both in our Mayor and Sierra Madre's adjudicated newspaper of record. Hopefully Susan will have changed her mind by the time she publishes her report.