For those of you who quickly side with the District, regardless of the many crimes they commit against taxpayers, your lack of critical thought is shockingly obvious. Try to follow along, if you can.There was a pivotal meeting at Reid Middleton in Everett where it was decided by everyone in the room that the 11.3 acre site (now known as the District Support Center) is contaminated and should not be purchased. In the room that day was one lawyer, one property appraiser, one environmental consultant, one civil engineer, one licensed real estate agent, one district director with a Masters degree in Public Administration and, despite her claims to the contrary, Marla Miller.
Marla claims that she has never been to Reid Middleton's office. If that was true, how would her information be more reliable than the summary provided by a person who was actually in the room? Why would Marla allow a meeting of that caliber to take place, regarding such an important topic, without being in the room? I am not saying she was qualified to be in the room, but by virtue of her position, it would be professionally responsible to be there.
If my meeting summary was false, how would it violate attorney-client privilege? Even Marla's lawyers have confirmed that the meeting happened and that my summary of that meeting was true enough to suggest that I violated attorney-client privilege.
However, I am still a little puzzled as to how Marla's lawyers could think that I violated attorney-client privilege. I was not the attorney or the client. I was a District taxpayer that also happened to serve a clerical function with the District (according to Nick and Marla's rebuttal to my initial letter in the Edmonds Beacon in March of 2007).
That meeting at Reid Middleton resulted in a unanimous conclusion - the property is contaminated and should not be purchased for anything greater than $3,300,000.00.
Why can't Nick and Marla just admit that they were taken for a ride? Raskin knew the District was drooling over his contaminated piece of dirt and he is a seasoned property developer. He bought the site in 2001 for just over $1,000,000.00 and sold it less than four years later for $5,600,000.00.
The moral to this story: A fool and her money are soon parted, especially if it isn't her money that's departing.
2 comments:
Yes, it is interesting how those who aren't "in the room" are so quick to condemn those who were.
I have been told by any number of people that the bullying that I witnessed directed against others and endured myself at the District didn't happen. They are very angry AT ME for daring to make such a claim.
I was even told by the EEA president that nothing would ever happen to stop the bullying because I was the only one complaining. (Not true: he had similar complaints the year before from another employee in my building; nothing was done then, either, and they "retired" early.)
My response to him was, "Well, then the bullying is working; I'm the only one brave enough, or foolish enough, to report what's really going on."
Finally, prodded into action by my public whistleblowing, the District "investigated" and TEN or TWELVE staff members reported to me later that they had described to Tam Osborne what they had seen or endured, too.
In a conversation with him nearly a year later, Osborne all but admitted that he recognized that they STILL had a continuing bullying problem by administration and staff at my former work place.
The lesson here is that upper administration will continue to do whatever they want no matter what ANYBODY says. First line of defense: discredit and slander the whistleblower; make a list of the names that Mark is being called and the remarks discrediting his expertise or his motives. For me it was telling my former colleagues a slander that I was a physical danger to staff and students, requesting an LPD police car to sit in the parking lot (I lived 230 miles away; they kept telling me that if I didn't like it there, I could go someplace else, so I did), and signing a "no trespass" order against me to scare me and try to shut me up when I spoke about how the bullying that I had endured had affected my mental health in a negative way.
"Get over it"? If Limon came to me and said, "Ya know, we misjudged and mishandled that whole bullying situation. We didn't treat you fairly. I'm sorry." that would go a LONG way to helping me "get over it."
Accepting responsibility for dropping the ball on a land purchase or a piano lease or bullying employees would be a better road to take than name calling, hiding behind a "set" agenda, or plain not telling the truth.
The Truth will set you free.
And in that spirit, I sign my name for the first time on this blog, in the hopes that others who have witnessed improper activities or endured improper treatment while employed at ESD (or parents who might have witnessed same) find the courage to step forward and add their named voices to the chorus that is demanding simple justice and responsibility from your elected leaders and the administration of your district.
Richard Reuther
Former teacher, Meadowdale Middle
Richland, WA.
Bullying would be a great topic for our DLMG (District Labor Management Group). Oh that's right they don't talk about labor issues it's not the place for that kind of topic. We have all bargaining groups represented on this committee and we still have all these labor problems because we can't talk about them. What the heck do they do at these meetings???
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