School Board Scandal
Posted By: Jason Youmans
06/17/2009 8:00 AM
Did ideology drive the campaign against Catherine Alpha?
B y a 5-3 margin, the board of School District 61 has put plans in motion to spend an estimated $44,000 to elect a replacement for ousted trustee Catherine Alpha.
Whether or not the June 27 by-election result stands depends on the outcome of a B.C. Supreme Court action launched by Alpha after she was removed from office for failing to correctly file campaign finance disclosure statements in the months following the November 15, 2008 election.
The majority of the board that has abandoned Alpha to the courts—chair Tom Ferris, vice-chair Michael McEvoy, Elaine Leonard, Jim Holland and Dave Pitre—say they’re just following the rules that govern municipal and school board elections in British Columbia. However, the three dissenting members—Peg Orcherton, Bev Horsman and tireless anti-school-fees campaigner John Young—contend that Alpha has fallen into the ideological chasm that divides the board.
“Catherine Alpha is the victim of an innocent mistake, that’s obvious,” says John Young. “And she should not be victimized by being denied her seat on the school board because of a simple human error. There was a fair way to solve the problem, and there was a political way to solve the problem, and they chose the political way.”
Alpha lost popularity among some trustees and district administrators earlier this year with her calls for a “restoration budget” that reflected the true costs of educating the region’s students.
A strict interpretation of the Local Government Act—which applies to school board elections—supports Alpha’s disqualification, in that her financial agent, Deborah Nohr, submitted only a disclosure form for the Victoria Public Education Coalition, under whose banner Alpha ran, without a declaration signed by Alpha herself.
But Alpha and her supporters say it was an honest mistake based on a misunderstanding of new legislation governing elector organizations and neither Nohr nor Alpha had ever had to file disclosure papers before.
And besides, says seven-year trustee Peg Orcherton, irregularities point to a failure of district staff to handle their election responsibilities with due care and attention. After all, says Orcherton, Alpha submitted her forms on March 12, three days before the cut-off date, but it was not until April 23—after participating in five board meetings in the intervening month (and after the 30-day late filing deadline had passed)—that she was informed of the problem with her paperwork.
“I was very clear that it was either political interference or gross incompetence or both, and I stand by that,” says Orcherton.
Orcherton filed her own disclosure forms on February 23, only to receive notice from district staff later in March asking about their whereabouts. She promptly contacted the district to inquire about the fate of her forms.
“I got an e-mail later saying ‘Oops, sorry, we found them, they’re here,’” says Orcherton. “So, the question is, what happens to those papers? They’re not vetted by anybody at the office? Even though the secretary-treasurer, under our bylaws and under his roles and our regulations, is responsible for running elections? You would think that somebody would have a review and make sure that everything is in order.”
Board chair Tom Ferris offered this assessment of the limits of the secretary-treasurer’s role in an election: “[As a candidate], you do a financial declaration, and so it’s your responsibility as a candidate to say ‘Here’s the money that I brought in for my campaign, here’s where it came from and here’s what I did with it.’”
Orcherton argues it’s apparent district staff have few guidelines for managing post-election matters, so at a May 11 in-camera meeting she brought forward motions demanding clarification of the specific role of district staff in election administration. But the majority of the board voted to defer the matter until a later date.
Ferris says Orcherton’s motions deal with issues bigger than the board. “It’s not something that we as an individual board should take up, because it may have impact on the Municipal Act,” he says. “It may be that as an organization, the British Columbia Association of School Trustees would want to go down that road or they may not, depending on what kind of legal guidance they get, or what kind of advice they had from the Ministry of Education.”
Orcherton sees it differently. “That was tabled, in my view deliberately, because to act on it would acknowledge that there wasn’t a process in place.”
Also at issue, says Orcherton, is how an ad announcing the June 27 by-election—signed off by Chief Electoral Officer Thomas Moore—was able to run in the morning edition of the Times Colonist on Tuesday, May 5, when the trustees had only voted to appoint Moore to the position on the evening of Monday, May 4. “It speaks to issues that I’ve raised with the board before about administration and some board members acting without the authority of the board,” says Orcherton.
Board chair Ferris says the district wanted to avoid a summer election where turnout would be even lower than already predicted and so began putting the election together before the May 4 vote. “This was a decision that I personally took, to make sure that we booked that space,” he says. “Of course it’s the board’s discretion whether to have an election or not, and if the board decides not to have an election, then there’s no election. That doesn’t mean that you can’t book space for an ad.”
Finally, questions remain about the necessity of Alpha’s disqualification. Winning city council candidates in the Duncan, North Cowichan and Ladysmith 2008 municipal elections were all subject to disclosure filing infractions, and all three councillors in question retained seats around their respective tables.
In Duncan, councillor Paul Fletcher—in direct contravention of the Local Government Act—failed to open a separate bank account to manage his campaign expenses. But Duncan mayor Phil Kent says his municipality received legal advice only that there was an option to pursue his removal—an option that mayor and council were not willing to take.
“We looked at the severity of the non-disclosure, we asked the candidate to provide details of the bank account they did use to show a match on the expenditures,” says Kent. “Ultimately, we just didn’t believe that pursuing it was in the best interest of the community.”
Trustee John Young says a simple letter in support of Catherine Alpha signed by all SD 61 trustees to then-education minister Shirley Bond could have avoided her ousting. But that, he says, is not the spirit in which the board majority does business.
“If it was one of their own that had made the mistake, I think they would all come to his or her rescue,” says Young. “But, because a mistake was made by a so-called left-winger, well, the right-wingers see this as a golden opportunity to get one of the left wing off the board. That’s what I think.” M
http://www.mondaymag...d-scandal/news/
STAY CONNECTED TO VIBRANTVICTORIA
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON CITIFIED VICTORIA
