Guffanti Editorial, "Dangers of Union Control" first lie exposed--True history of the Recall

The North County Times editorial staff reaches yet another new low in allowing Dr. Stephen Guffanti to publish an editorial without fact checking. Most local folks have their editorials fact checked before they are published. A pro-public education editorial by Jim Wickstrom was fact checked line by line by J. Stryker Meyer as publishing was delayed and delayed. The Double Standard at the North County Times is blatant. The only surprise is that comments are allowed after the article.

Guffanti's fact free editorial, "Dangers of Union Control" here:

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/guffanti/article_6a6d3551-d441-5f2d-85ce-a173c0d411e9.html?mode=story

Let's start lie by lie in this editorial. Here is the very first one: "after Vista's teachers union engineered a recall"

The recall in 1994 was COMMUNITY organized. It was started by community members after the December 1992 school board meeting in which the three member ANTI board majority decided to debate whether science should be taught in VUSD classrooms.

The Vista Teachers Association did not join until the Spring (I believe in March). There are MEETING NOTES on file at the VTA office that prove this.

There was great debate in the VTA about joining. Many of us INCLUDING myself were dis-inclined to join the COMMUNITY organized recall. I argued against joining at the Executive Board of the VTA when the proposal was first brought up. We had reached out to the ANTI board to try to find 'common ground". I thought we should continue with our efforts. We even had a 'common ground' conference with those board members at the district office organized by then superintendent, Rene Townsend.

I VOTED for one of the ANTIs Deidre Holiday in the 1990 election because she had come to my church and been introduced to our congregation by our pastor as a Christian running for school board. Little did I or he know that she was part of a movement of folks I now call little god, hate filled christians who felt that confrontational, "muscular" christianity and ABSOLUTE allegiance to their peculiar view of the Bible was necessary. To be a Christian in their view, you must believe that the Bible says God created the earth six thousand years ago POOF and you must deny all science. In fact you had to believe that all the science of the last 150 years was an some kind of evil plot to destroy christianity.

As opposed to long held protestant beliefs that said good people read the Bible for themselves. No priest tells them what it says. They read and decide based on what they see in scripture PARTICULARLY the beginning and the end of the Bible--Genesis and Revelations. The doctrine is called 'The Priesthood of the Individual."

The VTA did not join the recall because of the attacks on Science by the ANTI board. We did not join until the ANTI board reached into our classroom and took OUT curriculum vital to the health of our students and tried to adopt a racist and fact free sex education curriculum. "Pet you dog not your date' was a quote from their curriculum.

I was even told by one of the supporters that "FACTS ONCE GIVEN COULD NEVER BE TAKEN BACK". I changed my mind on the recall because PUBLIC SCHOOLS are in the business of giving children information not withholding it.

This ANTI board got so nutty that NATIONAL newspapers noticed. Our tiny little district in north San Diego County made the FRONT PAGE of the NEW YORK TIMES, the LATimes and the SF Chronicle among others.

The ANTI board turned down multi million dollar grants that staff and teachers had worked on for years. They did not believe in taking government money. I know it made no sense for the trustees of a PUBLIC school to turn down government money when the concern (VUSD) they were charged with running got 100% of its money from taxpayers. The very definition of a PUBLIC service means taxpayer money but there you have it.

The RECALL was a BROAD BASED community effort. Real estate brokers were particularly helpful as home prices started to decline when our once proud district was being daily humiliated by the actions of this board and the press coverage those actions were receiving. Other business in town helped as well. Parents were involved. Retirees from many backgrounds helped.

The only ones "engineering" anything in Vista were the ANTI majority. Their actions resulted in great dissatisfaction in this community and they were removed from office (two of them). Diedre chose not to run again. The recall worked exactly as it was envisioned by Republican Governor Hiram Johnson and his supporters in 1911. Bad folks who were not doing the job they were elected to do were removed from office before they could do anymore damage.