Teachers accuse trustee of tryst
Ten Buchser Middle School teachers, concerned about a colleague wronged by an allegedly unfaithful husband, wanted to punish the Other Woman.
They wrote to the Santa Clara Unified School District board and demanded consequences for “a stunning breach of ethics” by schools trustee Noelani Sallings for an alleged dalliance with a Buchser teacher’s husband.
Their letter was recently seized and mailed anonymously to dozens of Santa Clara residents and leaders — with the district’s return address on the envelope.
Sallings, in an email to IA, called the letter “not worthy of a response,” labeled the allegations “a distraction” and threatened legal action against the teachers who signed the letter.
The 10 teachers who signed the letter did not respond to our questions.
They’re incensed in part because they campaigned two
years ago for Sallings, who was running to restore civility to the fractious board. She’s now board vice president. So far the Santa Clara school board has not responded to the letter — but it would be surprising if it took any action. School boards don’t investigate the personal lives of employees, much less of fellow elected officials.
Now speculation abounds about who circulated the letter. It wasn’t the teacher-signatories, district officials say.
“It’s a real concern that people are using our address,” said Santa Clara Unified board President Albert Gonzalez. This isn’t the first time an anonymous mailing has cropped up in Santa Clara.
Four years ago, when Kathleen Watanabe ran a website opposing then school board candidate Chris Stampolis ,a packet arrived at work, addressed to her employers. Inside, a twopage letter called her, among other things, a cyberbully.
“It was upsetting,” Watanabe, now a Santa Clara city councilwoman, said about being anonymously targeted. “However, I did not stop my efforts to keep him off the board.”
The return address on that packet was Santa Clara City Hall. Vickie Fairchild, who runs an unofficial website chronicling district matters, has asked recipients of the teachers’ letter to place it in a plastic bag and deliver it to her — possibly for analysis.
Sallings is in the middle of a four-year term, but seats held by two allies — Gonzales and Jim
Canova — as well as lightning rod Stampolis and Michele Ryan are up for grabs in November. The campaign, it seems, has already begun.
San Jose candidate Kline fires parting shot
The morning after District 6 candidate Norm Kline lost the election — despite a sparkling list of endorsements including Mayor Sam Liccardo — he took a shot at Dev Davis and Helen Chapman, the two candidates who beat him.
“I have nothing personally against either Helen or Dev and they ran good campaigns,” Kline wrote in an email to 16 supporters. “But it is unfortunate that District 6 now has to choose between far left and far right. I believe the people in district 6 really do not reflect either one of those extremes.”
Far left and far right? Kline was calling Davis, a Republican endorsed by business groups, a “far right” candidate and Chapman, a Democrat with support from organized labor, “far left.”
Both candidates chuckled when IA shared Kline’s email with them.
“I don’t know in what universe I could be considered far right,” said Davis, who calls herself a moderate Republican. “Apparently, he never listened to my answers in the candidate forums or read my answers that were on the transparency project.”
Davis called Kline’s characterization a “knee-jerk reaction” to what her policies might be — without ever talking to her privately.
Chapman dismissed Kline’s claims she is “far left.”
“I’m pretty moderate,” Chapman said. “I think most people in my community know me pretty well. I don’t want to see people continue to create a divide because I don’t think the neighborhood benefits from it.”
Kline told IA he has “absolutely no comment” on the leaked email, which he had sent to close supporters, including a registered lobbyist, a San Jose planning commissioner and a publicist.
The former planning commissioner finished third Tuesday in a field of eight candidates, earning 16.8 percent of the vote to Davis’ 20.8 percent and Chapman’s 20 percent. Davis and Chapman will advance to a November runoff to replace termed-out Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio.
Voters give the boot to coastal commissioner
Coastal Commissioner Martha McClure is going to lose her seat at the dais, but don’t expect Northern California environmentalists to get choked up about it.
McClure was hammered Tuesday at the polls, losing 2-to-1 in her bid for re-election to the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors. As a result, she will have to step down from her post as the commissioner representing the North Coast for Gov. Jerry
Brown, who appointed her back in 2011.
She is viewed as one of the prime movers behind the 12-member commission’s controversial ouster in February of Executive Director Charles Lester.
And McClure has one of the worst records on a score card produced by coastal advocacy groups that track commissioners’ votes on major development projects.
Jennifer Kalt, director of Humboldt Baykeeper, says environmentalists had a monthly meeting with McClure’s predecessor, Bonnie Neely. That changed, in a big way, when McClure took office.
McClure quickly developed a reputation for brushing off environmental groups from Humboldt County but holding numerous meetings with developers. In five years, Kalt said, “she never returned one of my calls or emails.”
And, Kalt added, McClure never displayed any contrition in the face of recent news stories that she had failed to properly report a campaign donation from the partner of lobbyist Susan McCabe and a stay at the Malibu villa of Don Schmitz, a consultant for coastal developers.
Asked for her reaction to McClure’s defeat, Kalt said, “Woo-hoo!”
“I think the voters rejected her because she failed to the play by the rules that are clearly laid out for people in her position,” Kalt said.
McClure did not answer our requests for comment.
State Sen. Beall to host Monday Night Live June 27
State Sen. Jim Beall will be hosting San Jose’s Monday Night Live political satire performance on June 27.
That may be a blessing, since he just survived one of the more colorful re-election challenges in his career in which he was accused by fellow San Jose Democrats Assemblywoman Nora
Campos and county schools trustee Darcie Green of trying to bully women out of politics.
That race also saw the emergence of news that Campos’ husband, Neil Struthers, had been in a tussle with a union leader during a labor event at San Jose’s Fairmont Hotel. During the fight, Campos said, her man got kicked “in the balls.”
So it would not be surprising if there were a few jokes mentioning spheres.
But on a more somber note, there also will be a tribute to Joe
Horwedel, the former San Jose planning director who died of cancer earlier this year. Horwedel had written skits for Monday Night Live. The comedy show is a benefit for the San Jose Stage Company.