Jerry Roberts
L-R: Ismael Ulloa, Kate Parker, Jackie Reid, Wendy Sims-Moten, Eder Gaona-Macedo (Courtesy photo).
By Jerry Roberts
Around 6:45 [Tuesday] morning, four of five members of Santa Barbara’s school board were photographed together at a cozy Cajun Kitchen breakfast, raising questions of whether they violated California’s iconic open meeting law on Election Day.
The Ragin’ Cajuns, who sat down together at the restaurant on De La Vina after an early morning Democratic Party get-out-the-vote operation included: Ismael Ulloa, an appointed incumbent who is on the ballot, plus board chair Jackie Reid; vice-chair Wendy Sims-Moten and Kate Parker, all Dems supporting his election to the non-partisan office. Rounding out the party was Eder Gaona-Macedo, who is Ulloa’s campaign manager
California’s Ralph M. Brown Act, aimed at guaranteeing the public’s right to attend and participate in meetings of local legislative bodies like the school board, places broad restrictions on local officials meeting together without public notice and discussing “business of a specific nature under the body’s jurisdiction.”
However, it also provides an exemption allowing members to meet for “social or ceremonial events” where no such business is discussed.
This being a small town and all, it didn’t take long for the image of four incumbents huddling on Decision Day for a hotly contested race for two seats on the school board to rebound swiftly across the internets in Santa Barbara.
The politics of perception. Amid in-the-weeds buzz about specific provisions of the Brown Act, Newsmakers pondered a less legal, but equally important question about politics and the optics of perception:
At the end of a campaign featuring complaints about the lack of transparency at the school board, WTF were they thinking?
Reid and Sims-Moten did not respond to requests for comment, but Ulloa and Parker (who’s going off the board but was on Tuesday’s ballot running for City College trustee) insisted there was no substantive discussion of, you know, schools or education issues at the table.
“The Brown Act allows board members to meet socially, as long we don’t discuss school board business, which we weren’t,” Ish told us. “It’s election day, we were discussing the election. The picture you attached proves we weren’t meeting privately, it was out in the open.”
“We were talking about the election,” Parker agreed. “We’re allowed to meet for social reasons, as long as we don’t discuss board business.”
But school board candidate Mark Alvarado begged to differ, saying that if the super-majority of the school board did not violate the letter of the Brown Act, they clearly flouted its spirit:
“At the end of the day, it just looks unethical,” Alvarado told us. “It really highlights the problem of transparency at the school district.”
The expert speaks. Jim Ewert is General Counsel of the California News Publishers Association, and one of the state’s leading authorities on the Brown Act.
In an interview during which we relayed the basic facts of what happened, he said the crucial issue in determining whether the four had violated the Brown Act was the subject matter of their conversation which, of course, is known only to them and that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.
“What’s interesting is – what was the discussion about?” Ewert said. “To the extent that their conversation started to delve into matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the school board, it could fall within the parameters of the Brown Act,” he told us.
He added, however, that if the four discussed “purely political items,” it likely would not violate the Brown Act.
It sure would violate the Common Sense Act, however.
There were no injuries.
For the record: Lauren Bianchi Klemann, spokesperson for the district, referred us to SBUSD’s Board Bylaws 9320, which permits members to congregate for “a purely social or ceremonial occasion.”
Working even “socially and informally” as an elected super majority on behalf of partisan interests to ensure certain favored candidates get elected does expose the unhealthy climate that prevails in too many of our locl “non-partisan” elections. GOTV is of course a neutral sentiment of political engagement on its face; except this partisan crowd uses partisan voting lists to make sure they get out only fellow Democrats to vote. GOTDV is the better term for this activity – Get Out the Democrat Vote. Stakes are high – the Democrat Party and their teacher union cronies want your money. Too bad they do not care about plummeting SBUSD student outcomes, with as much collective zeal.
How dare they eat breakfast! The nerve of public servants. Its a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to them eating lunch, dinner and worst case scenario, dessert! (silly jabs at political opponents deserve silly responses)
Jerry Roberts is starting to get like the national media. I guess trying to get a member to confirm that they did discuss school business and then publishing the story is just too hard- it’s easier to publish a story that someone somewhere might have violated a rule and if they did it would be really bad. Where there is smoke there must be fire. If it is good enough for the national media publishing Trump lies as if they are news, and Georgia Governor-candidate allegations of hacking with no proof, then it is good enough for our local sources.
Kate Parker…you’ve lost my vote. As if you aren’t discussing who you’ve voted for or why their policy is better then another one. Next time start a private group text thread like the rest of us!
Why should a group of Democrats worry about a silly thing like the Brown Act? Even if they were caught red handed violating it, they’d be protected by the rest of the Santa Barbara Democrat cabal. The Democrat monopoly in this town is slowly but surely ruining everything it touches.
why should a group of citizens not be allowed to have breakfast together?
You are either very thin skinned or a blatant liar… very hard to believe you *were* going to vote for Kate Parker until she had breakfast with this group.
They are elected public officials. They signed up for the job and know what rules apply to them – even during the private hours of their lives. Roberts is also claiming the appearances of a conflict of interest, not just the technicalities of the Brown Act, which should have been on their minds as well; even if not legally required. But how would anyone know – were they working as a super majority to influence the outcome of the next SBUSD election? That is what raises the suspicions when gathering of elected public officials takes place outside of public knowledge or notice. Bad call on their parts. If they don’t want these burdens placed on their private lives, then they should resign from their chosen public positions. And forfeit any possible lifetime public pension benefits as well.
what do you expect from Santa Barbara politicians, I bet they had Das Williams on speaker phone
Meeting in a public place like that, they could easily be overheard. It does seem unwise of them to meet, but it is truly possible they were on the up and up. Come on, let’s hear from the other breakfast-goers and waitstaff: did you hear what they were talking about?
heaven forbid a group of people go out to breakfast. talk about lynch mob, get over it.
They should know better.
As long as they didn’t discuss “work”, socializing could be a good thing, promoting relatedness between board members, thus allowing the board to function better. Don’t make mountains out of molehills.
You guys occasionally have meals with people you work with? Tables of CHIPs or other law enforcement people–in uniform!–eating together offend you? May all your worries be so trivial.
You obviously have no clue about the Brown Act. Google it. Educate yourself.
It is absolutely true that the Democratic Party in particular has been corroding the barriers between “non-partisan” elections and their activity. The worst example in this local election was the effort to get Darcel Elliott a starter job on the SBCC Board by arbitrarily trying to knock off one of the best people on that board, Marsha Croninger. Fortunately they were embarrassed badly in this effort which must have cost them a few bucks. Unfortunately it also cost the attacked person money and unnecessary stress. Can’t we get the local political committees to come to some agreement to stay out of non-partisan campaigns?
Das Williams protoge Darcel Elliot did build up a very impressive political war chest. Wonder how she intends to spend it now. Obviously she was not interested in the SBCC seat, because she clearly did not resonate with the voters in the SBCC district she was running in. Obviously she is setting her sights somewhere else. Along with those who funded her very large political war chest. Follow the money on this young lady. The significant campaign war chest left-overs are now hers to spend, but within campaign finance guidelines. What is her next move.
Jerry, there you go, being a tabloid hack again. How about doing a bit more research and trying to find out what they were actually discussing before making an unfounded allegations? You’re supposed to be a journalist, not a gossip columnist.
Jerry Roberts’ lack of objectivity and diligence in this ‘news’ story is absurd. He has no sense of gravitas. He is an embarrassment on television and here. This is not news and it is not a scandal without some actual investigation.