Saturday, October 07, 2006

Pamela Smith, Lozano-Smith and the Moser case


Pamela Smith

Pamela Smith and Felicia Starr have both worked to cover up serious violations of law at Castle Park Elementary. It's clear that each of them has personal priorities which they consider more important than the public interest and the education of children.

And that they support the illegal tactics recommended by district lawyers. How many school districts choose lawyers that will help them violate the law?

200 school districts have chosen the notorious law firm of Lozano, Smith. How corrupt is Lozano-Smith? All 80 members of this law firm were ordered by a federal judge in 2005 to take an ethics course. The Bret Harte Union School District near Sacramento channeled almost half a million taxpayer dollars to this firm in an effort to avoid providing student Robert Moser with special education help. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger was so disgusted with Lozano, Smith that he wrote a scorching 83-page opinion in which he accused the district of "repeated misstatements of the record, frivolous objections to plaintiff's statement of facts, and repreated mischaracterizations of the law."

"Lozano should have told their client early this case was a loser and cut their losses, but they didn't and just got in deeper and deeper," said Judge Wanger, as reported by Pamela A. MacLean of The National Law Journal.

This is precisely the same behavior practiced by CVESD's two law firms, Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz and Parham, Rajcic. These law firm and the CVESD board have long been deeply in need of ethics training.

It should also be mentioned that San Diego County Office of Education uses the services of Lozano, Smith. I wonder if the new SDCOE superintendent, Randy Ward, has any plans to find more ethical lawyers. So far, he has ignored suggestions that he do just that.