Fall guys charged in killing of Russian journalist

Suspects charged over murder of Russian journalist

Anna Politkovskaya was a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian prosecutors have formally charged at least four of 10 suspects detained over the murder of reporter Anna Politkovskaya, a defence lawyer says.

Russian prosecutor-general Yuri Chaika said on Monday 10 people had been detained and anti-Kremlin forces abroad had ordered the killing of Ms Politkovskaya to discredit President Vladimir Putin...

Ms Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead in her block of flats on October 7 last year.

A senior editor at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper where Ms Politkovskaya worked, Sergei Sokolov, said he did not think the crime had been solved...

"The question of the person who ordered this killing has not been worked out in full - the interpretation of the prosecutor-general is more political than judicial."

Mr Chaika said on Monday said no political pressure had been exerted on prosecutors.

He said Ms Politkovskaya was killed by an organised crime group led by an ethnic Chechen and including at least five serving and former law enforcement officers.

- Reuters
August 28, 2007
ABC NEWS
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/28/2018035.htm?section=justin

Chauncey Bailey dies investigating a group gone wrong

A Journalist's Death
Chauncey Bailey is murdered while performing an essential task of democracy.
Washington Post Editorial
August 11, 2007


THERE WAS a time when many people in Oakland, Calif., admired Your Black Muslim Bakery, a neighborhood enterprise founded in 1968 by a charismatic African American known as Yusuf Bey. Community members, politicians and the local media hailed the bakery as an example of black self-help in an otherwise dispiriting environment of urban poverty. For years, they tended to ignore or play down reports about the more violent side of Mr. Bey's operation, or about such disturbing events as a political rally at which Mr. Bey remarked that Jews "are not worthy of being hated." Among the many who were a bit soft on the bakery was a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, Chauncey Bailey, who doubled as news director for a television channel that Mr. Bey paid to broadcast his sermons.

But in 2002, the East Bay Express, a local alternative newspaper that had praised the bakery, ran a penetrating series of articles on the activities of Mr. Bey's minions, including the alleged torture of a Nigerian immigrant. That series earned reporter Chris Thompson threats from Mr. Bey's group. Mr. Bey's arrest in 2003 on 27 counts of raping four girls further damaged both Mr. Bey's image and that of his organization, though most of the charges were dropped and he died before his trial.

Mr. Bailey began to take a second journalistic look at Your Black Muslim Bakery. Having become editor of the Oakland Post, a small weekly newspaper focused on the African American community, Mr. Bailey probed the bakery's murky finances -- until the morning of Aug. 2, when a masked man approached and fired a shotgun at his head. According to police, a 19-year-old employee of the bakery has confessed to the murder, saying he carried it out because of Mr. Bailey's reporting. The suspect denies he confessed and claims he is innocent.

Job-related murders of journalists are extremely rare in the United States: The last one took place in 1993, and there have been only 13 since 1976 (including Mr. Bailey's), according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Yet this murder is a reminder of the need for reporting by professional journalists, even in an era when amateur video of war zones can be had at the click of a mouse. Aggressive journalism is still a vital part of every community's defenses against corruption and crime. It can save lives.

Chauncey Bailey died doing his duty as a reporter. That duty is not only indispensable in a democratic society; it's also risky...

John Davies silences public comment at Charter Review Committee

From San Diego City Beat's "Last Blog on Earth"
August 10th, 2007
by David Rolland

"...at last night’s Charter Review Committee meeting, committee chair John Davies refused to allow CityBeat’s favorite City Hall-watcher, Mel Shapiro, to speak at the podium about some of the items on the agenda. I recounted how committee member Mike McDade urged Davies—a stern fellow who wants to limit public comment to one time at the start of the meetings—to let Shapiro speak..."


http://lastblogonearth.com/2007/08/10/you-cant-treat-mel-that-way/#more-1081

Death of a young American journalist in Oaxaca

City Beat has an excellent story this week by John Ross on the murder of American journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca in October 2006.

Here's the URL: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=6051

Here's an excerpt:

"...Two of the gunmen were later identified by Mexican news media as Pedro Carmona, a local PRI political fixer and cop, and Police Commander Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello. One of the men crouched down behind Carmona was Abel Santiago Zárate, aka "El Chino" (the grasshopper). Santiago Zárate and Aguilar Coello were reported to be the personal bodyguards of PRI Municipal President Manuel Martinez Ferrea. The other two men would be fingered as Juan Carlos Soriano (aka "El Chapulin") and Juan Sumano, both Santa Lucia police officers.

"You can see the gunmen in the film Brad Will shot just moments before the bullets hit him, and they are clearly framed in a picture taken at the same time that ran on the front page of El Universal.

" When the shooting erupted, Will took cover on the opposite side of the narrow street from the rest of the press. He was crouched against a lime green wall when his bullet came for him. You can hear the shot on the sound track and listen to Will's cries as it tears through his Indymedia T-shirt and penetrates his heart. A second shot caught him in the right side. There was little blood, the first slug having stopped his heart from pumping. On film that Gustavo Vilchis and others took, the entrance wound looks like a deep bruise..."

Is the San Diego Union-Tribune clueless?

Today the SDUT editorial page derided the intelligence of left-leaning bloggers who want to unite to bargain for health insurance.

The SDUT thinks that this idea makes no sense. Bloggers are silly to think they can bargain, says the SDUT, because the bloggers don't have employers.

Here's how the SDUT puts it: "Now along comes a story about some of these lefty bloggers that is so flabbergasting it demands this observation: So we're clueless?"

(This question is apparently directed to left-wing bloggers who think that the mainstream media don't "understand how the world really works nowadays.")

Economics lesson #1 for Bob Kittle and friends:
You don't need an employer to bargain for a better price for health insurance. All you need is a large number of people who are combining their purchasing power. As the quantity being purchased increases, the price goes down. This method works whether you're buying health insurance, office supplies, fleets of cars, or potatoes.

The answer to Bob Kittle's question ("So we're clueless?") would seem to be YES. Not always, of course. But in this case, I'm afraid so.

But, to be fair, I did like the editorial about the team of students from Mexico who won the National Geographic World Championship. And I do like print journalism. In fact, I think San Diego would be much better off if we had two print newspapers instead of one. Perhaps the North County Times and the East County Californian will expand into downtown and make San Diego a great American city with two competing print newspapers.

Bonnie Dumanis tries to limit media coverage of her own press conference

Mark Walker of the (San Diego) North County Times wrote on June 19, 2007:

" District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said Tuesday that her office made a mistake when it barred a North County Times reporter from attending a news conference she conducted on Monday.

"The newspaper's reporters will not be barred from future news conferences, Dumanis said.

""We are back on track," the district attorney said during a meeting with Dan McSwain, the newspaper's acting editor."

Here's something I found on Bonnie's own online biography:
"She taught ethics and trial skills at the University of San Diego School of Law ..."
That would be the same school that hired Rudy Castruita, the San Diego County Office of Education recent past Superintendent who supported Daniel Shinoff's illegal tactics in support of school officials who broke laws.

Our comments are back! Thank you, SDUT!

This morning I found that all the comments were back on the Logan Jenkins article. (See previous post.)

The San Diego Union-Tribune Has Standards

Yesterday, Logan Jenkins of the San Diego Union Tribune wrote about the settlement MiraCosta College made with President Victoria Richart to get her to go away:


"I don't know what element of the settlement to admire more.

"The $650,000 in “damages”? (You help blow up the place and then collect for your theoretical injury at the hands of dissident board members who may have illegally dissed your leadership. Fabulous!)

"Indemnification in all future lawsuits? (You walk away clean, no harm, no foul – forever!)

"The confidentiality clause? (All lips are sealed. No snitching!)

"Though not highlighted in the press, one clause of the settlement struck us as especially brilliant.

"If the college fails to pony up the dough by next Saturday, you'll “remain as Superintendent/President until those payments are made.”

"Talk about striking the fear of God into your marks. Pay me or I'll . . . stay!

"Madam president, you must be very tired, but deliriously happy."


These three comments had been posted by the time I read the piece on the Internet:

By wondering on 06/23/2007
Bravo, Mr. Jenkins !!!

By whatagreatscam on 06/23/2007
I was not even aware of all the preceding details of this situation and it was apparent to me that this circumstance is the modus operandi of this woman. Those board members must have been asleep.

By Sky173 on 06/24/2007
I guess San Diego has become the haven of every white collar crook in the U.S., be it college president, politician, or developer.

I figured, why don't I add a post, too? Here's what I said:
I hope Victoria Richart will show due respect to those who have paved the way for her. What if Daniel Shinoff's partner Leslie Devaney had never pulled off the Laurie Madigan deal in Chula Vista? In Chula Vista, the public official in charge, mayor Cheryl Cox, was also a client of Daniel Shinoff, just like the MiraCosta Board. It's remarkable the way the Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm plays both ends against the middle, with the taxpayers footing the bill for both sides!

I came back two hours later, and all four posts had been erased. I'm trying to figure out which of the rules we broke.
Here is the SDUT posting policy: "Comments containing threats, foul language or thinly disguised foul language will be deleted. Keep it civil, stay on topic and your posts will remain online."

I figure I violated the unwritten SDUT policy: "Thou shalt not speak ill of Daniel Shinoff, Leslie Devaney, or Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz."

UPDATE: All the comments were back the morning after I posted this. Thank you, SDUT!

Kogan focuses on the politics of education

Just yesterday I complained that VOICE OF SAN DIEGO shortchanges education coverage, so I was delighted to see Vladimir Kogan's story today about Greg Campbell, who was apparently fired for working to organize a union at Art Institute of California.

Kogan writes:

"In a statement issued Tuesday, and in a subsequent interview, Art Institute President Elizabeth Erickson declined to discuss the details of Campbell's dismissal, though she denied that it was related to his work on behalf of the union

"'I cannot comment on any personnel issue, but I have never and will never make an employment decision based on union activity/affiliation,' she said in a written statement.

"Erickson has made no secret of her opposition to the union. In several letters distributed to staff at the college, Erickson has urged faculty members to not sign the union authorization cards.

"She ended one memo on the drive, dated April 26, with a sentence written in bold capitals: "You may be signing up for more than you bargained for!" (Erickson said her intention was to warn faculty that signing the union cards would entangle them in a legally binding contract.)"

Obviously, Erickson thinks she has plausible deniability, but I think most people would understand from her words that she was threatening the jobs of people trying to form a union.

Erickson stated further that a union "would only reduce her ability to work personally and one-on-one with individual faculty members."

She refused to answer a question about her position on an academic senate without a union. She said: "I would say that I don't choose to answer that question."

If Erickson were really interested in education, she'd be in more of a learning mode herself. She obviously thinks she knows all there is to know about the subjects and methods that would benefit her students.

That's not too likely. I think the school would benefit from more input from the faculty.

Both the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Voice of San Diego Could Do Better

The San Diego Union Tribune has many talented reporters, but I believe that SDUT journalists are thwarted constantly in their efforts to get out the truth. I'm interested in education, and I've long believed that Voice of San Diego might have done as good a job on education reporting as Chris Moran and Leonel Sanchez do at the Union-Tribune if the VOSD editorial staff hadn't changed.

I felt that Marsha Sutton was knowledgeable about education and sincere in her desire to improve it, but was not aggressive about telling the real story.

I noticed her big two-installment article about school financing in 2006 never even mentioned how much SDCOE spends on lawyers. Even the SDUT has printed some pretty aggressive reporting about school lawyers Bonny Garcia and Daniel Shinoff. What gives? Why was Marsha Sutton more gentle with Garcia and Shinoff than the Union Tribune was?

The SDUT isn't telling all about one of its favorite newsmakers

CVESD UPDATE: For news about the $1 million jury award in the Danielle Coziahr v. CVESD lawsuit, click HERE.


David Washburn of the San Diego Union Tribune wrote on May 18, 2007, regarding the recent lawsuit against Vencent Donlan and his wife Robin Donlan, "...Robin Donlan, who teaches fourth grade at Hilltop Drive Elementary in Chula Vista, is cooperating with federal investigators to an “unprecedented degree.”

Any cooperation at all from Robin Donlan in the investigation of crime is unprecedented, in my experience.

Robin's lawyer David Hiden said "she has waived attorney-client and spousal privileges and agreed to informal interviews."

In a civil lawsuit filed about four years ago against Robin Donlan for misdemeanors committed against Maura Larkins at Castle Park Elementary School District, Robin's entire defense was based on attorney-client privilege. Her argument was that any subject she had ever discussed with her attorney was something she should not have to answer questions about. Robin answered only ONE written interrogatory in San Diego Superior Court case no. 781970, and she answered it EIGHT MONTHS after it was served on her, when she knew that the plaintiff had already found out the answer to the question. (The answer was found by a private investigator at a cost of several hundred dollars.) Robin Donlan's brother, Michael Carlson, who is a sheriff's deputy in Santa Barbara, never answered a single interrogatory, nor showed up for a deposition. But perhaps he could be helpful in the current case. He could tell his sister that he puts people in jail all the time for being in possession of stolen property.

While Robin Colls Donlan's cooperation in answering questions is clearly a brand new behavior, some of her other behavior hasn't changed at all.

Robin ensnared a lot of her friends in her crimes, but they all stood loyally by her, claiming the same attorney-client privilege, and committing felonies to cover up her misdemeanors. Robin, on the other hand, seems to have turned against her husband. That's probably wise, since the FBI might be a bit tougher than Robin's victim in the previous case.

Donlan turned against Chula Vista Elementary School District after it had paid many $100,000's of taxpayer dollars to defend her. The San Diego Union Tribune wrote frequently about her attacks on the school district in 2004 when she was transferred to a new school. The district had to spend EVEN MORE MONEY TO DEFEND ITSELF FROM Robin Donlan, after it had spent so much TO DEFEND HER.

Here's what I'm wondering. If Robin really believed that she had HONESTLY AND GENUINELY come into millions of dollars in wealth, why didn't she pay back the taxpayers for all the money they spent on her? Robin's former lawyer Daniel Shinoff is still living high off taxpayer dollars, but the students of Chula Vista Elementary schools could sure use the money.

Interestingly, today's paper says 30 former officials at Mira Costa College are outraged by the college president, Victoria Richart. It seems she funnelled around a million dollars to Daniel Shinoff and school staff to investigate "the errant, but well-intentioned, actions of a teacher struggling to make her program the best in the state." This quote is from a letter from the 30 former officials.

My own personal opinion is, if a public entity is doing business with Daniel Shinoff or Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz, that public entity is probably involved in dirty business. Chula Vista Elementary trustees Cheryl Cox, Bertha Lopez, Pamela Smith, Larry Cunningham and Pat Judd wanted lawyers who would be willing to commit crimes to cover up crimes, so they chose Daniel Shinoff of Stutz and Mark Bresee of Parham & Rajcic.

This is certainly true of Grossmont Cuyamaca Community College, where chancellor Omero Suarez changed his own contract without permission, but the lawless board kept him on. He and Dan Shinoff are apparently doing exactly what the board wants. The board clearly does not value honesty. If it did, how could it get away with violating the law so often?

Thumbs up for Tanya Mannes

Tanya Mannes impressed me this morning with her excellent article about San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and her mysterious "Public Integrity Unit."

The unit has indicted one person in fourteen months.

That person was Jason Moore, an aide to former Chula Vista mayor Steve Padilla. Jason Moore made the mistake of being caught by Cheryl Cox's associates trying to take photographs at a secretive fundraiser with Cox's disgraced family friend David Malcolm.

Here is the article.

The SDUT and Robin and Vencent Donlan

To Chris Moran:

For years the San Diego Union Tribune has refused to allow you to tell the truthabout Robin Donlan's crimes at Castle Park Elementary.

Now that Donlan been sued for $7.7 million by Wireless Facilities, and is underinvestigation by the FBI, SEC, IRS and DOJ, will your bosses Karen Winner and William Osborne finally let you tell the truth about Donlan and the CVESD board and their CTA friends local presidents Gina Boyd, Jim Groth, and CTA attorney Michael Hersh?

Maura Larkins

P.S. I know she's under investigation by the above organizations
because all of them have visited my website looking for information
about her.

Oops! Did the SDUT say too much?

The San Diego Union Tribune hides the wrondoing of public officials it likes. But the SDUT did give a perfect description of how those officials go about their business in the first paragraph of an article on April 22, 2007:

"San Diego County Officials aren't actively helping the Chargers find a new stadium site--they met only once with team representatives last year--yet since September they've paid $109,787 to two consultants who specialize in stadium deals."

The SDUT article goes on to note that a "one-hour phone call at a cost of $585" was part of the bill for something the county supervisors pretend NOT to be working on.

Gee whiz, you don't think Greg Cox and the all-Republican board of supervisors is trying to steer a stadium deal to Chula Vista, where his wife is mayor, do you? These consultants, who cost an average of $506 per hour, won't steer the Chargers away from cities with Democratic mayors, will they? Well, if they do, it's probably good for the Democrats. The Chargers have a tendency to drain money from any city that builds them a stadium.

San Diego County Supervisor Greg Cox pays public money to lawyers to get him what he wants, but pretends he himself is not involved. This is exactly how his wife, Cheryl Cox, operated in Chula Vista Elementary School District with her lawyers
Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz.

The Cox Collaborative sets up lawyers with an assignment, then continues to channel public money to those lawyers while looking the other way. A public employee is appointed as go-between so that the Coxes don't have to communicate directly with the lawyers. They can claim ignorance of all the dirty deeds--unless someone actually provides the Coxes with the proof of the misdeeds.

The Coxes were provided with proof that Daniel Shinoff and Kelly Angell (AKA Minnehan) obstructed justice and suborned perjury on Cheryl Cox's behalf. Rather than investigate, Cheryl Cox said that the lawyers had told her not to talk about the matter.

Cute little scheme, isn't it? Greg and Cheryl aren't as dumb as they pretend to be. They are, however, every bit as secretive and dishonest as they appear to be.

Free the San Diego Union Tribune Five!

The San Diego Union Tribune refuses to allow its reporters to write the full story about many events, particularly wrongdoing by people of whom the SDUT is fond.

The strange events at Castle Park Elementary are one such story. Click here to read more about what went wrong in Chula Vista Elementary School District.

When will Karen Winner, William Osborne and Bob Kittle allow reporters to practice journalistic ethics? They might want to start with the fine reporters who cover education issues around the county. I am speaking about good reporters like Chris Moran and Leonel Sanchez. I am most definitely NOT speaking of Don Sevrens, who writes anonymously about education. Winner, Osborne and Kittle should forbid Don Sevrens from writing any more anonymous stories about education. He's told enough whoppers already.

Below is the latest installment of the Castle Park Elementary story, taken from the CVESD Reporter Blog.
___________________________________________________________________________________
CHULA VISTA POLICE DEPARTMENT 2005-06 HOAX ON BEHALF OF CHERYL COX TO COVER UP CVESD WRONGDOING

Chula Vista is not the place to go if you are looking for equal protection of the law. It makes a big difference to the CVPD if you're a Republican or Democrat. Republicans like Cheryl Cox get help from the CVPD in covering up crimes and other wrongdoing.

On the other hand, a Democratic employee of the City of Chula Vista who took two hours off work to spy on a Cheryl Cox fundraiser has been charged by Bonnie Dumanis with perjury for not admitting he was doing political work on the job.

There's a lot of political work being done on the job in Chula Vista, but you don't hear much about the work done by Republicans in the police department.

The Chula Vista Police Department is a friend of Cheryl Cox, who was a Chula Vista Elementary school board member before she was elected mayor. The CVPD failed for over a year to investigate a financial crime at Castle Park Elementary School reported in 2005. Why? The CVPD has a knee-jerk policy of covering up wrongdoing by Cheryl Cox and Chula Vista Elementary School District.

In 2006 I pursued a public records request for months before the CVPD admitted that it had a record of a police visit to Castle Park Elementary on April 21, 2001. When they decided I wasn't likely to go away, I finally received a copy of the Castle Park Elementary School "call" report.*

But the Chula Vista Police Department was doing a lot more than illegally hiding public records in its efforts to support Cheryl Cox's campaign for mayor of Chula Vista in 2006.

Between 2000 and 2006 a long string of crimes had been committed at Castle Park Elementary. Cheryl Cox and CVESD committed bigger and bigger crimes to prevent the exposure of earlier, smaller crimes and violations of law committed at Castle Park Elementary in 2000 and 2001.

See "Castle Park Elementary," "Teacher Reports," and "Law Enforcement" at MAURALARKINS.COM (link available on this blog's link list).

In 2005-2006, the most newsworthy crime being covered up by the CVPD and the media to protect Cheryl Cox and the CVESD school board was the embezzlement of about $20,000 from the Castle Park Elementary PTA.

Apparently fearing that this crime would eventually become public knowlege, perhaps because it was being reported by this blog and the San Diego Education Report website, the Chula Vista Police Department seems to have developed a plan in November 2006 to create the appearance that it was no longer covering up the embezzlement. Of course, by November 7, 2006, the election was over. The cover-up was successful. Larry Cunningham crowed that voters had seen throught the lies of his opponents. The truth is that the voters saw almost nothing because Larry and Cheryl had spent hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to cover up crimes and other violations of law at CVESD.

The police asked former Castle Park PTA president Kim Simmons to come in the CVPD office, where she was interviewed and arrested. Was Simmons arrested after a careful investigation? No, the CVPD does not carefully investigate incidents that might embarrass Cheryl Cox and the school board. CVPD arrested Kim Simmons simply to create the impression that they weren't covering up Castle Park crimes, and passed on their humble efforts to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.

What did Bonnie Dumanis do? Prosecute the crime? Not likely. Just as she had refused to prosecute CVESD Assistant Superintedent Richard Werlin for obstruction of justice, she also refused to prosecute Kim Simmons.

Why? Maybe because Kim Simmons knew too much about crimes at Castle Park Elementary.

Did I mention that Kim Simmons was a close friend of transferred teacher Robin Donlan, a member of a powerful teacher clique at Castle Park Elementary that received a great deal of support form local papers when she and several other teachers were transferred out of the school?

Robin Donlan and her friends created a bizarre brouhaha, in which they and the media attacked the principal of Castle Park Elementary without ever mentioning the crimes of which Donlan had been accused. The truth was that the principal was attacked for daring to challenge the authority of the "family" that had created a crime wave at the school.

In October 2004, Kim Simmons entered a Castle Park Elementary classroom, and asked to use the school phone during class time so she could call up Robin Donlan and ask for instructions on how to proceed with her attacks on the principal of the school. The teacher gave permission, and took the opportunity to explain to her students that she was "mad at the principal." (There has been a dearth of professionalism at Castle Park Elementary since this "Castle Park Family" teacher group took over.)

Kim Simmons, along with Gina Boyd, the president of the teacher union, and school site council President Felicia Starr were working with transferred teacher Robin Donlan to get rid of the first principal who had had the nerve to stand up to the arbitrary power of the group of teachers who ruled the school.

What was Cheryl Cox's role in all this? She and all the other board members authorized the payment of hundreds of thousands of public dollars to Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz law firm to represent Robin Donlan and cover up the crimes initiated by her and Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin and several other CVESD officers and employees in 2000 and 2001. After fostering perjury and other crimes, and using huge sums of public money to keep bad teachers in power, Cheryl Cox ran for mayor on a platform of "charater" and "fiscal responsibility."

The San Diego Union Tribune has maintained to this day a complete black-out regarding crimes committed by Robin Donlan, Richard Werlin, Cheryl Cox and others at CVESD. On November 17, 2006 the SDUT published a small article about the arrest of former PTA Kim Simmons. The story immediately went into "partially hidden" status in the Union-Tribunes archives. (If someone does a signonsandiego search for "castle park PTA Simmons," he'll get a message back saying "No articles found.) The article can only be found by leaving "simmons" out of the search. If you already know about Kimberlee Simmons, the San Diego Union Tribune doesn't want you to know more.

Of course, there has been no follow-up to the SDUT story. But there should be--because the story created the false impression that the police were actually intending to do something about crime at Castle Park Elementary. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The police waited until Cox was elected, and then they did their hoax arrest, but Kim Simmons was never charged with anything.

When wil the SD Union Tribune publish the full story, revealing Kim Simmons' close association to Robin Donlan and the "Castle Park Five"? When will the San Diego Union Tribune apologize for so maliciously attacking the honorable and decent principal of Castle Park Elementary on behalf of Robin Donlan, Kim Simmons, and the rest of their clique, after the group was found to be responsible for yet another crime after the SDUT had written so much on its behalf? How about it, Don Sevrens?

The SDUT November 2006 story about Simmons arrest was published to create the impression that Bonnie Dumanis and the Chula Vista Police Department are not covering up crimes involving Cheryl Cox and Castle Park Elementary School. It appears that Simmons wasn't really the fall guy; she was actually the pretend fall guy.

Bonnie Dumanis, why don't you investigate the use of public resources for political purposes at CVPD? Why don't you investigate crimes at Chula Vista Elementary School District, including perjury by Cheryl Cox and Robin Donlan? Or do you only use the public resources under your control to investigate Democrats?


*The police "call' report that was hidden for months by the CVPD revealed Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin's attempt to silence a teacher who had suggested that the media might investigate what was happening at the school in 2001. The teacher clearly knew nothing about the media in San Diego. The San Diego Union Tribune, the Chula Vista Star-News and La Prensa still have not reported those crimes, although all three newspapers have long known about them. These three publications exposed their lack of journalistic ethics when they published a deluge of letters, articles and editorials defending the teacher, Robin Colls/Donlan who initiated the crime wave! All three papers were incensed when Robin Colls was transferred from Castle Park Elementary. Richard Werlin, who called the police when the teacher mentioned the media, didn't correctly estimate the power of his Chula Vista Elementary School Board bosses, including Cheryl Cox, to silence the media. Werlin did go on to achieve a certain amount of notoriety for his use of the police to silence teachers. He had second-grade teacher Jenny Mo arrested in front of her students at his new school district in Richmond, California this year when the teacher went to the media with a story about bullying at her school. Of course, Werlin didn't step up and take the credit/blame for the arrest. He let the principal sit in the hot seat, while he took indefinite sick leave from his position.

San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial contained false statements of fact

When Don Sevrens endorsed Felicia Starr for the Chula Vista Elementary School District board in 2006, he claimed that she must be ethical because she had been appointed by a judge.

The San Diego Union-Tribune editor's claim was false. No judge supported Felicia Starr's appointment to the ethics board.

I obtained this letter from a judge through a public records request to the City of Chula Vista.