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Hey, F*** those public record laws.
We are royal government rulers and
can do what ever we want.
Berkeley schools hide harass case's cost Anika Anand and Emily Hartley, California Watch Published 09:46 p.m., Sunday, July 29, 2012 After a Berkeley High School student complained of sexual harassment by her guidance counselor, the Berkeley Unified School District spent $94,000 on lawyers to fight her claim. Then in February, school officials made a $57,500 insurance payout to settle the girl's lawsuit, according to court records and interviews. The financially strapped school district's spending on the harassment case probably was greater. But for the past year, district officials have refused to disclose how much they spent on the case, ignoring information requests filed under the state's Public Records Act by California Watch and by a legal watchdog group, the First Amendment Coalition. The girl, identified in court records by the pseudonym Lilah R., claimed in 2010 that Berkeley High counselor Anthony Smith had sexually harassed her for much of her junior year and that the school had ignored her complaints. Smith made lewd remarks, tried to embrace and caress her and pulled her out of class to make "unwelcome sexual advances," she said in a federal lawsuit. In letters to the girl's parents, school district Superintendent William Huyett said Smith's behavior was "inappropriate and unprofessional" but not sexual harassment, court records show. The girl sued when the district refused to remove the counselor from campus, said her lawyer, Michael Sorgen. Smith denied wrongdoing and still works as a counselor at the high school. His lawyer, Mark Davis, said the lawsuit had no merit, but that the district had settled because fighting it would be too costly. Two lawyers from a Pleasant Hill firm represented the school district in court. The district paid the firm about $67,600, said one of the lawyers, James Marzan. Marzan said the district also covered Smith's legal expenses, paying $26,300 to Davis' firm. The girl's father said a Pleasanton lawyer, Marleen Sacks, also had worked for the district on the case. Sacks declined to comment. For the past year, Berkeley officials have balked at disclosing how much they spent defending Smith. In July 2011 and again in September, California Watch wrote to the district, citing the Public Records Act and asking for records of the expenditures. The district didn't respond. In November 2011, the First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael also made a Public Records Act request for the information. There was no response - just "a total, Kremlin-like institutional silence," said Executive Director Peter Scheer. State law requires all public agencies to respond to a records request within 10 days, either making the information public, estimating how long it will take to provide information or citing a legal reason for keeping it secret. "The kindest explanation is that the school district is so disorganized and incompetent that public records requests simply fall through the cracks again and again," Scheer said. "A less charitable explanation would be that they've simply adopted as internal policy a strategy of ignoring legal requests for records." School board member Leah Wilson said settling the harassment case was the right thing to do. "Speaking as a board member and given the legal advice we received, I would say this was the appropriate outcome," she said. "But I think as a parent, I am not comfortable with the outcome." She said she wasn't aware of the public records requests. "I'm a little confused as to why people just aren't responding to you," Wilson said. California Watch senior reporter Lance Williams contributed to this report. California Watch is a project of the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. Contact the authors at aanand@cironline.org or ehartley@cironline.org. For more, visit californiawatch.org. |