Board members used MHUSD emails to politically influence recall group
Published in the December 9 – 22, 2015 issue of Morgan Hill Life
To download and read the PDFs containing the school board members’ emails, click HERE
By Robert Airoldi and Marty Cheek
Politically-oriented emails exchanged by three Morgan Hill Unified School District trustees with members of a parents group over a period of months violated ethical governance standards, an ethics expert said.
Through a California Public Records Act request, Morgan Hill Life obtained from the school district 1,030 pages of the emails sent between all seven board members and Rob Guynn, Monica Guynn and Karen Fitch, three founding members of Parents For Positive Change. Some of the electronic communication of trustees David Gerard, Gino Borgioli and Rick Badillo show divisiveness, character attacks and racist and sexist mockery and indicate how fractured the school board was at the time the emails were sent.
Parents For Positive Change initiated a recall campaign against MHUSD School Board President Bob Benevento in August because they were upset that the board voted 4-3 to move 6th graders to middle schools in the district. The group needs to gather more than 6,000 valid signatures for a special election to be held in spring which the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters said could cost taxpayers more than $500,000. Benevento’s term ends in November 2016.
All board members had email communication with the three parent activists. Some of the online correspondence of Gerard, Borgioli and Badillo, however, show a trend of collaborating with Parents For Positive Change to organize the campaign by providing encouragement and advice such as how to obtain campaign yard signs.
In an email dated Aug. 6 sent to Rob Guynn from his MHUSD email address, Badillo wrote:
“BTW. If you start a recall, could I please be the first signature? Thanks.”
In an email sent Aug. 9 by Rob Guynn to Gerard and Borgioli with the subject line “Recall,” Guynn wrote: “David, Gino turned me on to a place that makes signs cheap. I would like to make some signs that read… RECALL TRUSTEES BOB BENEVENTO & RON WOOLF For unethical board practices.”
Both Borgioli and Badillo did not return email and phone requests for comment.
In an email dated Oct. 1 sent to Rob Guynn and Borgioli with the subject line “Do not forward,” Gerard using his official MHUSD email address wrote in a fake “Yahoo News” press release: “Local police are reporting that Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Steven Betando and Board President Robert (Bobby Boy) Benevento have suddenly resigned their offices in the wake of an undercover investigation that has uncovered massive system-wide corruption. Betando, a first-time schools head who has been the subject of numerous press stories and Benevento, his ally and target of a recall election effort launched by a grass roots parents group, have reported fled to Mexico and are en route to Palermo, Sicily, ancestral home of Benevento’s family.”
The mock press release then goes on to say Betando was “reportedly accompanied by 19-year-old Mexican model Angelita Morales Garcia, who was wanted in southern Mexico for drug smuggling and prostitution. Police reported that Benevento fled California with $16.7 million in school district funds that he allegedly acquired through an elaborate money laundering scheme facilitated by representatives of the local teachers union and one insider employed in the school district office.”
In an email dated Oct. 13 sent to Rob Guynn, Fitch, Borgioli and Badillo, Gerard described coming up with a new name for the board president and recommended using it in the recall campaign, calling him “Bozo Benevento.” The email also mocks board members Ron Woolf, Donna Foster Ruebusch and Amy Porter Jensen as being part of Benevento’s “Clown Car.”
“Watch them do their little dance!” Gerard wrote in the email. “Bozo’s little spin move just like a cheer leader when he prances from one trustee’s chair to the next, passing illegal notes, Woolfy’s elephantine lumbering out of the board room to go to the pisspot every time it’s my turn to speak, Bully PJ’s absurd big ass catwalk through the middle of the audience as Slimy Stevie licks his chops as he watches her from behind as the parents’ jaws drop when they see her slut shoes, and Rubbish’s classic fingernails-scraping-the-chalkboard-voice as she asks Bozo what’s the vote about three times before finally voting to let Slimy Stevie get off after stealing $23,000 in public funds.”
In an email sent Dec. 3 to Morgan Hill Life from San Diego where all the school board members were attending the California School Board Association conference, Gerard said he “sincerely apologize(s)” to the board members affected as well as anyone else who felt offended by the emails.
“Even though I thought I was not using the district email server via my mobile phone which put all of my emails in one box, that doesn’t excuse it and I take full ownership,” he wrote.
Starting March 13, a string of emails between Rob Guynn and Porter Jensen grew into what Porter Jensen called “harassment.” Porter Jensen left the school board Oct. 28 because of stress arising in part from the emails she received on a nearly daily basis from recall organizer Rob Guynn who also sent repetitive messages to Benevento, Porter Jensen, Ruebusch and Woolf demanding Benevento “resign” from the board.
Porter Jensen filed papers with the Santa Clara County Superior Court in October, accusing Guynn and his wife, Monica, of inundating her with emails concerning the recall campaign. She also claimed Rob Guynn made a “disturbing” phone call to her. The court granted her a temporary restraining order against Guynn, but that order was dismissed Nov. 17 in the San Jose Superior Court after she failed to appear before the judge.
A public official using a government agency’s email address for political activity, such as initiating an election campaign, can be considered an ethical violation, said Hana Callaghan, director of the Government Ethics Program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. School board members using MHUSD email addresses to communicate political information privately with a citizens group need to realize they are using the “indicia of office,” meaning their communications are coming across to those who receive them as official, she said.
“Public officials have a duty to all constituents,” she said. “It is a breach of ethical duties to use public resources in that manner….They are using their position in office.”
Karen Rezendes, an attorney with the Walnut Creek-based law firm Lozano Smith hired by the school district, reviewed the emails and redacted sensitive information such as student names and private email addresses before the emails were provided in PDF form to the media.
“(The law firm) advised the board collectively that they believe we have an obligation to submit them to those who requested them as a public record,” Betando said. “Each individual board member had the right to attempt to legally block them from being released and none of the board members attempted to block them from being released.”
The school district is looking at what actions it may have to take regarding the situation, Betando said. “There are individuals who are what I consider victims of this type of behavior and they also have to consider as individuals what steps they have to take if there are any they can take,” he said. “This is an embarrassment to the individuals. It is absolutely contradictory to the kind of behavior that matters to the staff and the community.”
Tuesday Dec. 8, the board of trustees will interview applicants for the position left vacant after Porter Jensen resigned. The applicants are:
Editor’s note: Despite the fact that our newspaper’s mission is to emphasize the positive aspects of our community, Morgan Hill Life decided this story is important to publish in the public’s interest.
Visit morganhilllife.com/emails-mhusd to download and read the board members’ emails. Some content might be considered inappropriate and offensive.
